53Lat::158Long

Home again, home again

2006-09-07T17:39:00.000-07:00

Dustin here... in the process of finally getting the blog up to date with the stories from the last month of our trip. I've got all the West Africa posts done (but need to add some pictures), and hope to finish up Egypt over the next days :)

Red Sea and the Sinai

2006-09-02T17:37:00.000-07:00

Crusing the Nile

2006-08-31T17:36:00.000-07:00

Luxor

2006-08-29T17:34:00.000-07:00

Coptic Cairo

2006-08-28T17:34:00.000-07:00

Islamic Cairo

2006-08-27T17:34:00.000-07:00

Pyramids!

2006-08-26T17:33:00.000-07:00

Atakpame to Cairo

2006-08-26T17:29:00.000-07:00

Final Installment

2006-08-21T17:25:00.000-07:00

Good evening all,

9:00 PM here, and we’ve just finished a great 2nd anniversary dinner with Dustin and Julianna. Two years ago today, in Seattle, was their big day, and it was really fun to celebrate with them then, as it has been today, in a little different setting. The picture is of the dinner table that Cate so thoughtfully prepared, with candles, etc. We sang to them when they walked in, and Wayne had even fixed up some “mood lighting that you can see in the corner behind them. The flash takes much of the special lighting affects out, but it really was nice. And dinner was great too. We had a special left-over of a great meal from a couple of days ago—a dish called founyo, much like cous-cous. Also had some fresh zucchini with spices C & W bought in Morocco. And fresh salad with tomatoes, carrots, onions, and clean lettuce. It must really be clean too, as we have had a lot of it here, at their home, and none of us still have been sick. Interesting that we have met almost 50 other PCV’s, and their first question is how sick we’ve been. Our answers always seem to surprise them, so something we’ve been doing has been working right. Maybe there are no bad types of bacteria in nuts from Costco and dark chocolate, or something. We HAVE been careful, but have enjoyed when we’ve been out too. Happy Anniversary to Dustin and Julianna!!!!

The other picture we’re going to send tonight, our last night here in Atakpame, is from a visit to Akpene’s (the domestique) grandmother’s little area where she lives. It was quite obvious that this was an important visit for her, and it became one for us as well. The little family compound was one that we had not seen, so it gave us a real view of living conditions, and homes, etc. We have some video of being around these wonderful, happy people, but you’ll have to wait to see that. What fun we had!!!! We watched them play around with each other, show love to each other, and the respect that Akpene has for her grandparents was soooo evident. She was very proud to introduce us to them. She and Julianna have a very special relationship too. They walked back together, while the rest of us went on to some different errands, and it was interesting hearing about that. One example maybe. They were walking along talking about what was around them, with chickens running all over the street, etc and Julianna was trying to find out what Akpene knew about where J lives. She said that there were no chickens running around the streets where she lives. J said that Akpene looked at her with amazement, and disbelief, and then started laughing, as it seemed so funny. She was wondering how in the world we got the chicken and eggs, etc. It was fun hearing about the communication, and also startling in some ways at how little she knew about what it is like. We thought that it is also good that she doesn’t know all the details.

That caused a great discussion at dinner about how what we have seen in the last two weeks, has impacted us, if any (oh, skip the “if any”). I don’t think I could do a good job of encapsulating the discussion, but just to say that we have certainly been impacted, and we’d all love to find ways to help, and feel frustrated in determining the right ways. We also felt somewhat helpless in what we could do. It is obviously is a gov’t to gov’t situation also, and we need to find ways to help others see the needs for education, health care, roads, communication, etc. I made the suggestion that we eliminate much of our gov’t by just having a election, then see who the majority party is, then have them elect just a small number of their representatives (maybe 25) and send the rest of their party, and the entire other party home. We then eliminate all the staffs of those hundreds of elected officials too. There is no need to have them all sit in Wash, DC and spend time arguing, etc and then, whoever the majority party is at the time, makes the decision anyway, and they are required to vote the way of their party, or go find another party anyway. Think of the billions that we could save, and then we could take country by country and spend the money, and direct the help to them, one by one, and end up having a real impact on ending poverty over time. I guess you could imagine that not everyone agreed that this was a great proposal, but I tried. We DID agree however, on the needs for education, health care, roads and communication. The picture we are sending is of the group of kids I had around me in Akpene’s home area. You can probably tell that I was enjoying the kids at that point!!

This afternoon, we did some packing, getting ready for tomorrow. We will be leaving here at 7:00-7:30 and have a taxi hired (same driver/chauffeur) that we had on our trip up north last week. He is going to be with us all day, and even got special license/permission to take us to Accra, Ghana. Evidently we will have to take our luggage out of the car, stand in the lines, and drag the bags across the dirt and rocks, get passports looked at, and then meet him again on the other side of the border, for the final 3 hours to Accra. We think we have the timing worked out so that we can go check in to C, W, J, and D’s hotel, and let me take a shower and change part of my clothing for the long trip home. I leave at 9 PM tomorrow night (Tuesday) and arrive home in LA at the same time on Wednesday night, after spending 6 ½ hours in the Amsterdam airport, and 2 hours in the Memphis airport. So it will be 31 hours of traveling. Nada is going to pick me up at the airport and take me home, and then stay in Camarillo. Not sure whether I’m going to be awake or not, but it will be fun to start the discussion about the visit to Africa, which N & N will be taking in November.

The weather has been absolutely terrible, as we had heard, and for which we prepared. One day it was over 80 degrees. I think we were so lucky/blessed with the weather, it is unbelievable. Today was probably the most mild all day. Very comfortable. That does not mean, however, that we don’t sweat when we walk around, as it is quite muggy all the time.

One other thing from today. We visited Kreje, the NGO that C & W work with, and heard from the people that work there about what they do, and what good they think they are doing. It was all about AIDS education and testing. They go to the jr. hi, and hi schools, and “auntie Kreje,” who has lived with the effect of being HIV positive for a number of years, tells them the stories of how she is coping, and how others can also. She stresses the importance of testing, which they do for free for them at this place. They do it in a little room (4 X 4), and they evidently get a lot of them to come in. The only people that will come in are those who are just about already dead, and the hospital has told them to get tested, or they are young school kids, who are being educated in the importance. There is such a stigma, and misunderstanding of the effects, that if someone finds out they are HIV positive, their family and friends are so afraid of being around them, and possibly eating or drinking with them, or touching them, etc that the family kicks them out of their homes, etc. Think that might have a negative effect of having someone go in for testing? Sure, that keeps them away. . .. big time. . . so only when they are going to die do they come in. So really the only hope is through the education of the next generation, which they are feeling some encouraging signs. This story is to tell you that we all feel Cate and Wayne are involved in important work!!!!!!

Time to finish up the packing, but wanted to get my last email in the air somewhere (or however this works), and hopefully Wayne will be able to make a good connection and get the pictures included. Reliability of connection is not a word that can be used here. Think of that as you are reading this on our DSL or cable lines. We’ve had a great trip, and C, W, D, and J are continuing on the Egypt on Thursday after a couple more days in Accra. I have had a wonderful trip, and I it has also been great to be with the 5 of us (from MY perspective). It’s fun to broaden my own education by talking with people who are involved, and care about others the way they do. Now I will go back to our beautiful home, and we will continue to build our more beautiful, and bigger home, and I’ll go back to my great job, and continue to look at my pictures, which will remind me of what a real experience I’ve had/seen, and hopefully they will be boosters to help me to be aware of opportunities available to have an impact on much of the world that is more similar to what I’ve just seen, than what I’m going back to.

Love to you all. Bye from West Africa.

Last day in Atakpame

2006-08-21T17:17:00.000-07:00

Woke up a little bit ago, knowing that this is my last regular morning in Africa. Tomorrow, we will be getting up very early and heading off for a 7-8 hour ride to the airport, so it will be a different day. I just finished shaving and brushing my teeth with the bottled water, went in to the kitchen and filled the pot with water, lit the propane stove, and have a hot shower “brewing,” so thought I’d write my last (probably) email.

Yesterday, after sending off an email, I wanted to go to a local church, and Cate thought that most of them began around 7:00 AM, so I took off at about 7:00, sort of like we do often at home (leave at the time something is supposed to begin). I decided I’d try to find the Baptiste Eglise that Cate and I had seen on a walk the other day, when we found the VBS. It is approximately a mile walk, so I got there about 7:20, after a couple of diversions trying to remember the right roads. People helped me. On arrival, there was a pastor inside writing on a chalk board (you remember, white pieces of a hard substance that write on a special kind of board that creates dust, and lets one see the words—much like the white boards we have on which we use colored markers). I walked outside and there were two people talking, and tried to ask them, using pointing to my watch, and to the church, what time the service began. They weren’t sure what I wanted, but I got 7:30 out of them. So I waited outside for ten minutes, greeting all the people walking by. Many were dressed up in beautiful colors, and both men and women had on closed toe shoes, and seemed to be aiming at something (going to churches I believe). They were lookin’ good and all fancied up. ALWAYS greeting, or returning the greeting, with/to me with a great smile. At 7:30, I went to the church. There was one other man in there now, and he was standing up in front of the church, singing and directing. I thought he must be practicing, but I think I came to find out that he started on time, even though there was no one there. The pastor came and pointed for me to sit down. Kirsten, you’ll appreciate this—I sat down in the second row, as per usual. I tried singing along, humming along, whatever. A couple more men walked in and sat near the front. Then they stopped singing, and the pastor came down from “up” on the platform, and kind of pointed to me and said something. Another man came over to me and said, “you pray.” So I did. It felt good praying for the privilege of being many miles from home and worshiping the same God with Christian friends in another country, and knowing that this was happening all over the world. I prayed for their health, their education, their country’s leaders and government, all our families, and a good worship experience for me. The pastor then began, not a service, but the morning Bible class. When a man walked in, he stopp, went over and brought him up and sat him next to me, and the new man told me he spoke English, and he was to interpret for me. He was great, and spoke very good English. He is a music and drawing teacher from a nearby village. Found out later that he was also a visitor, but had been there one other time, when asked by the pastor to do some special music, and he liked the church so he came back. He said that he has a goal of building a small church in his village and being the pastor there. As the pastor later preached, it was obvious that Peter (this guy) also knew the Bible very well. The Bible study, on Leviticus somewhere, was about being clean and pure. Good message, and I don’t think I missed any of it. Then the regular service began at about 8:45. I had a quick thought of getting up and leaving, but Peter kept telling me about some of the things the pastor was saying, like “we are really blessed this morning as we have a white man with us, and this is a real gift to our church, others will see it and it will help us, and he brings us these gifts, and don’t know what other gifts he brings.” Oh wow, I thought that I’d better at least stay for the offering. Well, lots of music, and the man next to me had a very special hymn book (remember he’s a music teacher) with the music as well as the words (in Ewe, the local language, so it was not pronounceable at all, of course). I could, however follow the music and I sang bass along with the teacher, who sang tenor. We had fun. After a rip-roaring, but positive, sermon, with the pastor enthusiastically preaching in Ewe, and another young man, with the same emotions and gestures, repeating everything in French, and my friend Peter giving it to me in English, they finally got to the offering. Cate and Wayne had told me a number of times during our visit that it is definitely OK for white people to come and to go at any time during any activity, I was feeling a little pressure, as, during the sermon, the pastor was telling them (by the way, the church was now very full, and probably had 40-50 kids also) that the Muslims pray 5 times a day, and they don’t even know the truth, and we all have a hard time praying a couple of times a week. We can’t even come to church on time. The white man was here right on time this morning, and sitting in his place in church. I was feeling just a little pressure to stay for the duration. They passed the offering bag, brought it up to the pastor, and the pastor said that we would do that again, only beginning with the choir, we would walk up this time, to the front of the church. I didn’t have any more small money, so I faked the dropping in the bag. I gave a 1,000 note, which is $2. I had a 5,000 with me, $10, but I knew if I did that, they would follow me home to meet my sister and brother-in-law, so didn’t want to over-do it. Enough of church. Sorry. I did have a hard time getting away, as the pastor had told them to be sure to greet me and make me feel welcome, and many wanted my email address, and thought that maybe I could help get their child to the US for school. That part is very sad to me. They want, so badly, to get their children educated, or themselves, and they aren’t too shy about asking. I got home 4 hours after I had left for church.

When I got home, the tailor, Marc, was here doing a fitting for Julianna. He also brought some things for me, and some gifts. He has seemingly been a good friend to Cate and Wayne, and they have been a help to him. When asked for a price the other day in his shop to do these things, he said that he was from Kara, and we knew him, so we didn’t need to worry about that, and he’d be fair. It was the first time Cate had ever made a “deal” without negotiating first. He told me my price first, and it seemed quite fair. When he did D & J, it was actually quite high, and C was very disappointed, but accepted it. Later in the day, when we had a great party, Amy, another PCV said that she had been disappointed in Marc, as he would not give her a price for a dress he wants to make for her, ahead of time. She would not go back to him now again, because of that. It is just part of the culture that these things are bargained for, and discounted, before purchase. C & W probably will not go back to him, even though they have done so much with him, and he seems ambitious, and business-like. One of the gifts he brought was a shirt for me—a very nice shirt, in black, white and yellow. He knew my size as he had made a purple and gold (duh!) shirt for me, at Cate’s request, before I came. I wore it after he left yesterday, and Cate had to agree that yellow is not a color I can wear. I had my “colors done” in the 70’s and I was told that I cannot wear yellow, and since then, it always feels wrong to wear anything with yellow. It, however, is a very nice shirt, and we thought of who might like it, and Tom, you are the one who is going to get it to see if it works for you. Julianna is bringing it home to you.

Actually took my first daytime nap yesterday. Laid down about 1:00, and I was gone! Slept for maybe more than an hour. It had been work listening to the church interpretations, etc, I guess. Made me think of what C & W have been through during these two weeks of listening and translating and speaking for us all the time. That part has been so very relaxing for me, as I have been totally dependent on them, rather than learning myself. All I really learned were the very basic greetings, and left the other stuff to them. Has to be very tiring for them, as it a lot of work to do that, as we all know. They are going to be very relieved when my plane takes off, I think. Dustin and Julianna have done much better than I with the French, and get into lots more direct conversations than I.

At 3:00, we began the FuFu preparation, with Safu, who came to prepare the meal. She is the one who had traveled with us up to Tamberma, and she wanted to do this to thank us—and also she doesn’t like to miss anything. She brought her son to help. We had purchased the yams (hopefully we’ll have a picture of some of that activity) along the road during the trip. They are huge, much bigger even than the large zucchini’s that Sandy Meyer brings in to the office from her garden. Then the pounding began. They cook them, much like potatoes at Thanksgiving, in a big pot, to be ready for mashing. The mashing, however, is a little more of a process than ours. They have an hour-glass shaped wooden container that they put some of the cooked yams into, and then two people stand ready and began some soft crushing of the yams with 5 foot long, 3” thick, poles with rounded ends. Then a kind of hypnotizing sound and process begins. The two people standing on either side of the mortar begin each taking a turn pounding the yams, one by one, faster and faster, harder and harder, same sound pounding the pistol against the mortar, in regular rhythm, over and over again. Every once in a while, they’d stop, dip the pistol in the water (purified for us) and begin the pounding again. Then the cook would come out, and feel of it, add a couple of handful sprinkles of water, and they’d begin again. Haunting sound that we hear often walking around anywhere. At C & W’s landlord’s place, right below us, the madame does this for her husband at least once per day, sometimes twice. After the pounding for a good 10 minutes each pot, the cook rolls it in her hand into a “small,” probably 1 ½ pound roll of fufu, which by now is a dumpling-like consistency. Each of us were to eat at least one of those, with our hands, gathering some of the very good sauce that Safu had prepared. Veggies and soja, a tofu—quite nice, and pretty spicy, but not too much. We watched the guests do it, and that showed us how to do it. C & W had invited PCV Amy, and her Togolese boyfriend, Naya, and a wonderful Togolese couple, (the man works for Kreje, the NGO that C & W work with), and Charlotte, the secretary from Kreje. A big crowd and we had a ball, and lots of good food. Stuffed. Part of the 20 pounds I’m sure I’ve added back on since arriving here. I was actually thinking that I may lose some more weight here, but not to be, with all the starches, and other good things I’ve been eating.

Not sure what pictures we’ll add on to this very long (sorry again) message, but maybe we’ll add one from Cate and my walk the other day, when we walked a couple of miles to a small village, where we bought probably 6 items that people were cooking on the street, for a total of right at 50 cents. The people were very happy to have us buy it, and then we gave it away (not good for us to eat, health-wise) on the way back. Those people were also very happy. Fun watching Cate negotiate them down from 7 cents to 5 cents, etc. It is the way it is done. There is ALWAYS a “first price” and then getting to the purchase price. In fact, in Ghana, where the English is spoken, they tell you the “first price is ______.”

Most of you are asleep by now, from trying to read this, but know that I am doing this so I have a record of my experiences and thoughts at this time, and we end up sending it to you also. Ready to begin the last day here in Atakpame, and Cate is preparing some oatmeal and eggs, and I’m going to get some fresh bread at the “bakery” across the “street.” Love to you all, from all of us.

A trip north...

2006-08-20T17:07:00.000-07:00

It is 4:45 AM and the sounds of Atakpamé are alive. The roosters are crowing as they do every morning about this time, and they have a distinctive sound. Wish I could send that along with this message, and project it into your room at 4:30 so you could get that same feeling that we get. The Muslims are also projecting over the loudspeaker, yes, at 4:30 AM, their “call to prayer/worship.” The musical part of it is kind of haunting and nice. The fact that they do this over a loudspeaker, at least five times a day, whenever they want, is a little unnerving. The Muslims are a minority % of the population, somewhere between 35-50% I’ve read doesn’t seem to matter. They are forcing everyone to hear their call, asleep, involved in their own worship or quiet time, working, or whatever. Sounds like, from C & W, that there is a protestant (they aren’t sure what kind of newer church it is) church down the street, that puts their worship over the loudspeaker on Sunday mornings too, and they really don’t like that as the “pastor” is a fire-and-brimstone preacher, and gets really mad at the people, and is not fun to listen to, but everyone within earshot gets to listen whether they want to or not. The sounds must not bother the people as I haven’t heard any complaints. The people don’t seem to be bothered by much at all. They all just seem to keep doing their activities of daily living. I don’t see much else in their faces than joy and happiness. The white teeth really show through, as we wave to them, and they all get this big smile and wave back. Gotta get the wave down though, as waving side-to-side means “hi,” and up and down means “come over here.” We’ve had some fun with that one.

We have had a wonderful three days away from Atakpamé. We have seen some gorgeous countryside, and LOTS of wonderful people. We have also met so many PCV’s along the way. It’s interesting, as we drive through a town or village, and, from out of the crowds of people milling around, somewhere, someone in the car will say, “there’s a white person," and it is almost always a PCV. There aren’t many of us!! We definitely stick out. And also, as we drive in our van, with Julianna in the front seat, that draws the attention of lots of men that yell out, or give signals to, our driver, saying how lucky he is to have “us” in the car with him. I think Julianna has gotten 15 marriage proposals. It takes them at least 4 to 5 seconds to make that kind of decision. It would be interesting to hear about each PCV that we’ve met, as they each have their own stories, obviously, but they all seem to love C & W. We’ve had meals with almost all of them, and seen some of their houses also. It seems clear that the ones working in the SBD (small business development), like C & W, have the best living conditions. That is due to the fact that they work with people that are trying to do “business” which is more in the cities than the small outside villages. The businesses range from selling bananas, to tailoring, well, you get it. The cities offer some chance of running water, and inside toilets, so the conditions are better. The natural resources management people are mostly out in small villages, and their situations are quite different. You won’t hear complaints from any of the volunteers we’ve met, about that though, as it actually seems to me that some of them actually like it the “worse” (from my perspective) it is. It doesn’t seem as if they are actually desiring it, but it is what they expected coming in, so it’s OK with them. They make-do with what they have. It is pretty clear that it is part of the make up of all the V’s we’ve met, that they want to live simply, and without lots of the “things” that get in our way of a simple life. Some of them have gotten rid of almost everything they had, given it away, or whatever, and come with everything they own (which isn’t much—even here). We have met mostly students (and they all seem to be working on some things for their further education), and many are writing theses, or going over to Ghana to take their graduate exams to get into grad school, in many different fields. Others have been stockbrokers, nurses, engineers (guess who?), etc, They really form a community also, and have their own “gossip” and it’s interesting to see how it “gets around.”

Our first day away we visited the factory of Codhani. This is where handicapped people make special cloths, and then into tablecloths, spreads, dresses/shirts, etc. We have many pictures from this wonderful experience, as we took pictures of each and every person, and then showed the pictures of each to them, and they got the same huge smiles on their faces as everyone else that we’ve done that with. Only two exceptions for me, as I showed them their pictures and they didn’t respond at all, just keeping on working. Not sure why they were different, from that respect, until another of the workers pointed out that they were blind! We saw (had one of the ones in charge take us on the tour) each step of the process, from the cloth, to design, to the marking on the cloth, to waxing the parts that would remain white, and not take on the color of the dye when dipped, and then the re-waxing, re-dyeing, rinsing, cutting, sewing, ironing, hanging, etc, with each having their own specific job along the production line. Quite a process, and so much fun to see and then BUY. It was very easy to buy things there, partly for helping them, and mostly because we think they product is very nice. I hope I feel the same way when I get home and look at the items there. No pictures here, as it’s too hard to just pick one.

The first picture is from a quick stop out in the country on the way to Tamberma Valley. There were a couple of kids, and nothing else much, it looked like, for miles. We started taking some pictures, and showing them, and then a few more kids came out of seemingly nowhere, then some adults. One of the women didn’t want us to take pictures without giving them some money, or a gift. I thought of the balloons I had along and put some in my pocket, and thought we’d give them each one. Thus, the picture, dubbed “new toys” by Wayne. Oh for getting excited so much about something so simple. Not to say that our grandkids don’t get excited over balloons, however, as I HAVE seen the same kind of excitement there.

The countryside, which we had kind of expected to be quite warm and dry, was instead, VERY lush and green and beautiful. This is the area of the country that has the Tatas, homes built of mud and sticks, with no tools used, that have quite a history, especially from when it sounds like they started, back in the slave trade days. They are in an area of the country, far away from the coast where the trading was done, and it amazes us to think that “whoever” came all that way to find/steal them to bring back to “sell” at the coast. It is probably a 10-15 hour drive (depending on the road conditions) trip. Anyway, they built these homes, with animals below, and small areas to live (bedrooms?) built in little bubbles on top. They are still doing this, and the homes need to be “repaired” twice each year. The PCV up there, who took us to see the “chief’s home” said that they understand they last somewhere between 30-60 years, depending on who you ask. When the “man of the house” dies, I understand that they take off a couple of the thatched points from the top of the house. There are many fetishes around, and in, the houses, to keep the bad things away. In the picture of the tata, you can get a pretty good picture of what one looks like, and how beautiful the countryside was, and we have lots of other pictures to prove it. It will soon stop raining up there, (we had plenty, but only in the car—and I mean rain IN the car, but never when we were out walking, etc.), and will turn brown and deserty. The rain in the car was one of those extra African experiences. It was leaking pretty badly in 3 places. One over Cate and one over me. We kept wiping up, but it didn’t really matter about getting wet—no big deal. It dries. The driver came the morning after and had put some tape over what he thought was causing the leak. As we drove, and it began to rain, we found out that he had probably repaired the wrong leaks. Then he asked some people where he could find some “scotch” (glad he meant tape), and drove into this village, over their wonderful dirt, rocky roads, and went in to a store, and came out with a sheet of old plastic wrapper. Then we drove to the gas station (did I mention $4-yes DOLLARS-a gallon?), and he started working on attaching the plastic. Many men came to help, and it was quite a process. I had a chocolate frozen Fan Milk while we waited. Ummmm good. They got it taped up pretty good in about ½ hour. The driver gave a couple of them a coin, and they were to share with the others, I guess. No one seemed bothered by it, and were glad to help us—I think they actually just liked being around yovo’s, and especially one being a pretty young female.

The picture of the chief’s wife is one of my favorites. I snuck inside one little area, following her, and took this and one other. It was actually quite clear that she didn’t want her picture taken, but we had paid the chief, and he said to take as many as we wanted (this is a “regular” occurrence, by the way), so I felt OK. He has 3 wives, and we only saw two of them. One said it was OK to take her picture, but had a headache, and wanted medicine from us first. Julianna got a couple of Ibuprofen and she took those. Not smiley people, except for the chief, but very interesting!

Atakpame walks

2006-08-16T17:03:00.000-07:00

While C, W, D & J were spending some time making final plans for their trip to Egypt yesterday, I went out for a walk. I went to an area we hadn’t been to see something new—another part of town. Atakpame is definitely hilly and I was up and down hills, in little “shopping areas” and types of suburbia I think. Not a whole lot different, but not as crowded, and to see a Yovo walking along, LOTS of greetings. Kirsten, Sherith and Erik, it sort of reminded me of our trip to China, when all the Chinese would yell out “hewo.” Here it is “bonjour msr.” or cava (pronounced sava). If it is said as a question, it is “how are you, or how’s it going,” and then the response is also “cava” but without the question mark, and then that means “it’s going well,” etc. C & W try to take walks where they can avoid some of the people once in a while, but we are still new, so it’s a really fun part of the walks. Kids come running out from behind walls, doors to say hi.

This morning, Cate and I took a walk together, just to get out. We ended up being gone longer than we thought. Wayne said we left at 6:30 and we returned at 9:30.

It didn’t seem that long, as we had a lot of fun. We walked out to another little village that was 1 ½ to 2 miles from here. The “In-n-out” restaurant is where many of them were having breakfast. Actually most were done, as things start early here, so they can be inside in the heat of the day. We have been wonderfully blessed with the temperature though, as it has been very mild. As soon as we started taking pictures, kids came out from EVERYWHERE to be in the picture and to see them on the digital camera. What joy they show in their eyes, and scream out, when they see their own pictures!!! Most fun part of the trip. On the return walk, we went by a Baptist church and school. There was a sign down on the road about the school, but was hard to figure out, but Cate did, and we walked up to see it. The head master of the school came out and greeted us, and wanted us to see what was happening. As soon as we hit the doorway of a classroom, with maybe 25 kids, they all stood up, and said together “Bonsoir msr” (can you tell I don’t know how to spell missuer?). Wayne says that all the people here love greetings of all kinds. Like he just got a call from a tailor that is doing some dresses for J, and we asked what he called about. He had just called to say Hello. No other reason for the call. Anyway, back to the school, he took us into 4 or 5 classrooms, ages probably 4-9? In each classroom, they automatically stood up and made the same statement, of good day msr. They were as excited as the other children that we had seen on the street, but it was very clear that these were disciplined, but not rigid, kids. They were polite, and sat in their chairs as I brought the camera around to show the pictures. Out on the street, everyone clamors to get to the camera, and put their fingers on where they are in the picture. Cate thought that if I was very careful about giving them some balloons I had in my pocket (probably about 15), so that the kids could not see me giving them to him, that it would be a good place. So, we gathered around the four teachers and the headmaster, and gave him the balloons carefully. The teachers were very appreciative. Not sure how they’re going to handle giving them to the few kids, but that it now their problem. We can’t do that on the street, or we’d have soooo many kids around so fast, and lots of them disappointed. We’ve already had the experience of giving C & W’s domestique two of the Thrivent bouncy balls that light up when bounced. The next day, on our return up our “road” (just HAVE to put that word in quotes!), kids came running. We weren’t sure what they wanted, but I had some balloons in my pocket, so I gave some out. Some didn’t want, or accept, them. We got the idea that wasn’t what was wanted. Cate asked Akpene about it. She said that she had shown the ball to the kids, and she knew she should not have, but was so excited about the ball, she couldn’t keep it a secret.

We are off to a lunch with the other PCV’s today, particularly with the newest volunteers. It is a meeting with them, but D, J and I get to go.

The meeting with the Ambassador didn’t work out yesterday. He had been very vague about his schedule, and an aide called yesterday morning and said that he MAY stop by. Never did, so we’ll miss meeting him.

More later. It’s time to go. We all love all of you. (Kirsten, since I am the one writing, I’ll take this opportunity to make this a private,confidential portion just to you. I love you and miss you lots.

I'm in heaven

2006-08-15T17:02:00.000-07:00

Can you hear the music. . . . I’m in heaven? That’s exactly how I felt last night as we experienced what it must be like to be there. Wayne and Cate had heard about the choral festival at the Catholic church downtown, and we got there about an hour late, 8:30 PM. When we arrived, they took us right up front, had some other people move so we had places. We figured out that they were having a mass, we got there just in time for the sermon. I didn’t understand really any of it, nor did any of the rest of us since it was in the local language, rather than French. Then came the offering. That’s where they set out receptacles and then everyone gets up from their pews and DANCES up to drop their money (a coin) for the church. I got some video of that—and, picture this—I also danced up and dropped in my coin, as did we all. Oh, how I wish I could transfer that feeling of inner happiness as they smiled and danced their way to the offering. When Mass was over, they moved us to the middle front, as they moved pews around for the concert—now about 9:00, which was to begin when they got set up. Wow, was I glad we had come late. This sounded as if it was a “first” having both Protestant and Catholic choirs in the same service.

The first up was one of the two Protestant churches. They were dressed in purple shirts, my favorite color-so my expectations were high. The expectations were blown away!!! They began walking/singing up the aisle, two by two, singing a rather subdued melody. They sounded good, sang in tune, etc. Their next song began and I could not put the video down. (I was to find out that I would run out of battery power during the night) They absolutely ROCKED!! I hope the video works and shows what we saw/heard/felt, however, as we all know, its never quite the same as being there. We did take time, when we returned to C & W’s, to look at one piece of Cate’s video, showing one of the members of this choir, coming down and pulling Julianna out from her seat, and having her dance with him, and others. You WILL get the feeling for the kind of night it was!!!! Hope I’ve whetted your appetite to see that one—I guarantee you’ll enjoy it. Kirsten, you’ll understand when I say they know how to do “business” along with singing—and there also is no problem getting them to smile and feel the music. I can’t wait to get home and show this part to some of our friends, especially Howie (our choir director). Maybe we can change some of the things we do, and do more of the O Su mono funghi (or whatever that was).

Then came a Catholic choir, with much the same experience. Then another protestant. Then a very small group, that the crowd wasn’t very kind to. They sang out of tune, and wasn’t easy to listen to, but the crowd just started talking amongst themselves, and laughing, etc. I was sitting next to 3 (probably) high school girls that I was having fun with. Lots of laughing, singing along, LOTS of clapping, as they just were loving all the good music, but they did not like this one, and ladies around them were waving their scarves at them telling them not to be so mean (I think!). They were ALL laughing at each other though. When there was anything familiar being sung, and there was a lot, many in the audience would join in. I just can’t tell you how big a smile this evening put on me the whole night, inside and out.

And, when they stopped singing at 11:45 PM, they started a skit. The president of the congregation, VERY important man, and the one that had told C & W about the festival, came over to us to let us know that it would be very OK for us to leave at that point. We stayed for a little while, watching the skit, but gave up, and left at about 12:30 AM. Walked back home (about 25-30 minute walk). That was the first time the streets were pretty quiet. Still some little “restaurants” selling stuff that we would not eat, were still open, but it was very quiet.

The weather has continued to be quite comfortable, but it is also very humid. So, by the time we get back up the hills, climbing the rocks, we are all somewhat sweaty by the time we get home. Then, at 1:30, we had calmed down enough to go to bed. This was to be a morning we were going to church, for the Assumption service, a holiday here in Togo, but we decided we had mass last night, and lots of spiritual music (we think), so we are just up now and getting started for the new day. This was to be the day that the Ambassador was to come here, but there has been no further information, even after Wayne’s calls, to find out if it is going to happen. Everyone is guessing that is “off.” That means we have the day free. Wayne and I are going over to the “bakery” right now to get some fresh bread/rolls that are REALLY good. I have some pictures of that too. It is just at a neighbor, and you need to know the way in there. I understand that many people come with their baskets, get the rolls/bread, and carry them on their heads around the streets, selling it. We are hoping that it is warm again this morning. When I made a comment that the bread in Ghana wasn’t very good, he reminded me that this is a French country, and the bread indicates that.

Off to the bakery.

French lessons

2006-08-14T17:47:00.000-07:00

Hi again,

Only a few minutes until we are leaving for a concert, we hope/think, at the Catholic church tonight. Pre-Assumption Day celebration, which is tomorrow. We had heard that it is a number of choirs, from here, and Benin, and includes both Catholic and Protestant church choirs. The message has changed with everyone we have talked with, however, so we’re not sure what to expect. We also cannot find out, for sure, in which church (Eglise) it is at. We think it’s at the Catholic church, since we don’t really think the Protestants celebrate Assumption Day, when Mary became divine, or something.

Another great day. This morning we watched Akpene (the domestique) deal with her chickens that she brought. In the picture with this email, notice how she is stooped over. She stayed that way for sooooo long, it was amazing. And then she stands, and doesn’t even get dizzy. She is getting a kick out of how much fun we are having watching her do her work. Today Cate once again explained how the salad spinner works, and she was fascinated (but most probably also thinking about how stupid this is) with how it worked, and spun off all the water.

Then we had our French lesson. Good pictures to send from that also. Innocent (the teacher’s name) is a great teacher, very patient, and lots of fun, while being very serious about us learning enough to get by while we are here. He would teach us a little something about greetings, etc, and then he’d walk down the hall and clap. That was the signal that he was at our front door. Then we would welcome him—“entrée”—and then we would each (Julianna, Dustin and I) practice the phrases that we just learned. Welcome to our home. Nice to meet you. My name is________, what is yours. I am from America, where do you live. What do you call ________ in French. I am _____ old, how old are you. Etc. He is Cate and Wayne’s best friend here, and is wonderful.

Then we went to lunch at the best hotel around,which is in another village about 7-8 kilometers from here. The man that took us had planned this for a long time, and it was really nice. Don’t think of the Westlake Hyatt or anything, but, for Togo, it was great. We had salad, eating some of the items, a great main course of Dorado (a fish), with the entire fish served on the plate), with cous-cous and french fries. Fruit cup for dessert. We are eating really quite well, and we just talked at dinner tonight about how wonderful it is to be eating here, with C & W, not having to worry about eating. This man invited his daughter (19) along with the obvious intention of us helping to find a way for her to go to the US to study in a college. Cate and Wayne have also been working with him on some projects, so I “brought along some money to give him to use for helping young women start in new businesses. Possibly $5-10 each, as loans. Actually, it is their money, but they are not supposed to fund as PC volunteers, so we arranged to have it this way.

We are leaving for the concert. Gotta go.

Soccer tournament

2006-08-14T16:56:00.000-07:00

It is 8 AM in Apatkame now, and we are finishing getting ready for the day, and will have breakfast soon. Wayne is already off, on his bicycle, to see if he can get another card to get on the email. Our time ran out over the weekend, so weren’t able to send any more email. If he gets it, we will be sending this when he returns. He downloaded a couple more pictures to send to you from our yesterday adventures. We had our “Now the Feast” celebration service right around the table here, with a great altar, sermon from Erik G (which Wayne read with the same enthusiasm with which Erik would have delivered it), and communion. Was it good to have been prayed for by the time you woke up yesterday?

Over the weekend, Julianna and Dustin went to a place where there are lots of kids, filling up their bowls, pans, other containers with water. Actually, I believe it is the only place it is free, and it is part of a park that was a gift a number of years ago, from the Rotary Club of Northfield, MN. J and D asked them if they could put the water on their heads, and it was fun and funny to watch that. I believe that one of the pictures is of them doing that. Both of them spilled some of the water, but it was really heavy, and they did hold it there for a while.

Yesterday we also went to a big soccer/football tournament. Erik, it reminded me of your 4 on 4 tourney at the Staples Center. Evidently there were 12 teams to start on Wednesday. By the time yesterday came there were four remaining. They played each other, and then there were consolation games, and the championship game. This tournament was started last year by the two PC volunteers that preceded C & W. The Cup has their name on it, and we could hear them talking about those two, and about Cate and Wayne, and Peace Corps, and also, as part of the funding agreement, about Aids and prevention, and testing, etc. Not sure, but it sounded like the PC got their money’s worth in terms of time. Actually, it wasn’t funded by the PC, but mostly by the volunteers who are now back in the states. We were seated right in the middle above the tunnel into the stadium, sitting on plastic patio chairs, while all the others were sitting on cement benches, like the stadium at Occidental. We sat next to the “man in charge” and there was NO question as to who that was. George is his name, and every once in a while, he would hiss (a way to get someone’s attention) or yell out, and people knew when he wanted something. He controlled who was on the microphone, whether or not a player who got a red card stayed in or left the stadium, who sat where, took us (all of us) down on the field before the championship game and had Wayne kick the ball between the teams ceremoniously—in other words controlled everything. The other picture is of the championship team—obviously purple and gold—thus dubbed “the Togolese Kingsmen.” I had a new shirt on, purple and gold, which Cate and Wayne had made for me here. Before the final game, when we were shaking the hands of all the players, I brought attention to the fact that I had their colors on, and they responded well. Then, after they won, I wanted my picture taken with them, and thus... the picture. Fun day at the stadium. Can’t wait for you to see the pictures of the field. Not quite like Staples, Erik. Part dirt, part grass, part very long weeds. They were great athletes and seemed to be well coached, and it is the only sport I have seen anyone playing. The kids use anything for a ball, as any real ball wouldn’t last more than a few minutes/hours here due to the rocks everywhere they can play (read... the street... but don’t get YOUR picture of a street).

We also met with a tailor yesterday, at C & W’s home, who is making some dresses, or whatever, for Julianna, and a shirt for Dustin. He was quite professional and obviously had fun with Julianna and Cate. Drawing pictures, translating not very common words, etc. While we were doing that, Wayne was meeting with a man who is trying to develop a solar panel business. Both Cate and Wayne are dealing with the small business area now, and this man had received an invitation to a special conference in New York, and was quite excited to go. They said that they would pay him, and another to go, but wanted Wayne to check out, through websites, etc to see if he could tell if it’s legit. What Wayne was able to determine was that it was VERY likely a scam, where they required them to send in some of the money as a downpayment, and then they’d pay the rest. Probably not so. After their money would come in, that would probably be the end of it. Too bad. I guess that is everywhere. We also met a man and his daughter. He has been waiting for us to come, particularly to see how D and J could maybe help his daughter get to the US and get into a school like UW. That is certainly a big deal here, and they love to have/know a Yovo, so we get noticed. We have only seen 5 other yovo’s here, and two of them were other PC volunteers. It’s interesting to be the minority, but no where near the same as being a lower class, lower income, not respected, held down, minority. We are definitely help UP, not down. We feel very safe walking down the street, day or night, here. Know that we won’t be accosted, etc. We say bonjour as we go, and literally everyone responds with a like greeting. VERY friendly.

Just had an interruption here, as we went out to watch Akpene, the domestique, “do” the chickens that she brought today. Two skinny little chickens that she brought in a cement bag, We took some pictures, and watched her cut their necks, bleed them, take feathers out, and she will cook them for us today. Cate says that there isn’t much meat on them, and they are expensive, and they don’t do this very often, but it is special for us. Breakfast is ready, and then a French lesson, so good-bye for now. Love you all.

First Sunday in Atakpame

2006-08-13T16:30:00.000-07:00

The next few posts about Togo are 'stolen' pretty much wholesale from Uncle Karsten's emails to family about our time in Togo. I'm trying to reconstruct as much as possible for the blog posts, and this seemed like the best (and easiest!) way to recount the time in Togo. So, from here until we get to Egypt, the tales will be courtesy of Uncle Karsten's emails...

Good morning. We just had a breakfast of pancakes, with blueberries that you sent, Kirsten. I walked in to the kitchen where Wayne was working on something, and saw him putting different powders, etc in a big bowl. I asked what he was doing and he said he was making pancake batter. We bought a bunch of powder at the Marche yesterday. I took a picture of the lady scooping the powder into one of the black plastic bags, that literally EVERYTHING is sold into, and she was a little nervous. I then showed her the picture and she, and all of her friends or family just ran off and laughed and laughed. What fun that has become!! Taking pictures, and then showing them. They are a little nervous first, and then just love it!! We stopped at a coiffure shop also, with 3 women with really fancy hairdo’s and I asked if they could do mine. They weren’t sure, at first, how to respond, but they eventually got the idea that I was joking. Then I asked Cate to ask them if they would act like they were working on my hair for a picture. We got one, and I think it was fun for them and certainly for me.

You’ve asked about my foot, Kirsten, and I guess I haven’t said anything, but it is still killing me. But, in the big scheme of things, it is something that I can deal with, as long as I have plenty of Ibuprofen, which I am really going through fast. No big deal. In terms of other health, I/we (Dustin, Julianna and I) have really felt good the whole time. VERY different from expected actually. The Peace Corps people that we had the birthday party with last night, asked how we were doing, and after we told them we had been doing very well, they said “Don’t worry, you’ll get sick before you leave.” Encouraging. It has been absolutely amazing to me that I have yet to get a mosquito bite, and really haven’t seen any. We have been quite careful about the time of being outside, to avoid the evenings and morning, etc, but it’s been really good. You KNOW how I hate mosquito’s and how they seem to find me, no matter what, so it’s even better. The weather also, has been extremely mild. Cate and Wayne are beginning to think we’ll go home and think that it is like this all the time. I KNOW that it is not that way, from hearing from all the people here, and, of course, from their earlier emails. It is certainly muggy, but not soooo hot.

We are about to start “church” and Cate has set up the table with a cross, candles, bread and wine, and we have Now the Feast, and With One Voice, and they have a sermon from Erik G. I brought the music for Surely the Presence too, so we’ll have a nice service. We can hear a protestant service going on outside, and C & W really hate the way the preacher does Fire and Brimstone, and yells negatives at the people all the time. 5 times a day, we also hear the Muslim “call to worship” over a loudspeaker. The last one was at 4:00 AM this morning.

Starting the service. More later.

African Travel

2006-08-12T16:04:00.000-07:00

Nothing happens quickly in Africa, especially travel! Two days after leaving Cape Coast, and around 15 hours in buses and taxis later, we arrived in Atakpame, Togo... home sweet home for my parents Peace Corps service. In the interim, we had stopped for a night in Lome, Togo - the capital city. We didn't spend much time there, but got in some souvenir shopping. Near by was the main market, a 'real' market where we got a look at how locals shop for produce, meat, dried fish, and just about anything else you can think of.

We also visited a fetishes market, West Africa is the home of voodoo. We didn't end up spending much time there, a few glances at the skulls (ranging from mice to horses) were pretty much enough to send us on our way. The cages full of live rats (available for purchase to sacrifice) sealed the deal, and we were ready to get back to our hotel, an on to Atakpame.

We went to the taxi park to hire a van to take us from Atakpame. Chaos would be an understatement. The definition of taxi park is something like, 'big dirt lot with as many mini-buses as possible packed into the space.' After a little negotiating (a must for any transaction) we had ourselves our own minibus for the trip to Atakpame. The roads were pretty smooth heading up the main highway for the majority of the trip. The last ten minutes were completely different though... the last turn put us onto what could only be called a street by African definitions. We put the driver out of his misery (and us out of ours) and eventually just asked him to stop, and we would walk the rest of the way. There house is part way up a steep hill, which we started to head up. We didn't carry our bags though, because as soon as we exited the minibus about ten kids came out and grabbed everything and starting lugging it up to the house on their heads! They knew that they had a coin coming for their help, and they also seemed happy that my parents had returned home.

Once we got inside we were spent, and after a quick tour of the house and a little unpacking, we spent the rest of the night settling in and recovering from a couple of days of hot and tiring travel.

Castles and Canopies

2006-08-10T14:22:00.000-07:00

After a great breakfast of fresh omelets, looking out over the ocean, we met up with Papa (our taxi driver) at 9:00 to head towards town and visit the slave castles. Our first stop was the St. George Castle, originally built by the Dutch, but operated by the British for the majority of time that it was the center of slave trade in West Africa. We took a guided tour that lead us through the dungeons where slaves were imprisoned, the tunnel that lead out to the ships for the voyage to the Americas, and the officers quarters. We were in a group of about 15 people, and it was a different experience for different types of people. There were Africans, Europeans, African Americans, and Anglo Americans. It was very sad for us to think about all the people that suffered, but was particularly more emotional for the African Americans who were with us and were confronted the same steps that some of their ancestors also walked. The experience was both sobering, and numbing.

Following the castle we visited a store on the way out, looking at shirts and dresses. We saw a man there wearing a beautiful piece of Kente cloth - and Julianna told him so! He said thank you, and the shop keeper told us that he was a king. It turned out that we had run into the King of that region, and we enjoyed a short conversation with him. After that fun experience, we headed back out to the street and met up with Papa to head into Elmina.

Back in Elmina we decided not to head to the second castle, but instead spend some time having lunch and walking around the town. Julianna found a great fabric store, where we purchased a couple of different patterns that we planned on bringing back to Togo to make some shirts and dressed with a tailor that Cate knows. A bit more walking around the shops, and the heat started to take it's toll - so we called it a day for Elmina.

After a little debating back and forth, Karsten, Julianna, and I decided we had better make the most of it while we were here... so we opted to head to the canopy walk in a nearby forest while Wayne and Cate headed back to the hotel (they had already done the walk on a previous trip). So, we got back in the taxi with Papa and headed off towards the canopy walk.

On arrival we found out that a group was just about to start the trek, so we got our tickets and joined the tour. The walk starts with a steep climb up a hill to reach the entrance to the canopy walk. At the top of the hill we saw the start of the narrow wooden bridge that headed out into the treetops. We were first up, and headed out onto the walkways, one person at a time. There are about seven spans of a few hundred feet each, and all are high above the ground (at least 200 feet). The views were great, although the height produced the occasional woozy feeling!

Post canopy walk, we got back in the taxi and returned to the hotel to rest up from a long day in the heat (and get some ice cream!). We had a relaxing late afternoon by the pool, looking out at the waves - and finished up the evening with another round of experimenting with the local food on the menu. We were all happy with the new cuisine, and ready for a good night's sleep by the time we finished eating!

To Cape Coast

2006-08-09T14:21:00.000-07:00

The next morning Beth prepared some great pancakes, and then we packed up and headed out to Fifi’s house in town - were they had graciously offered to store our bags for two days while we headed north to visit Cape Coast. We dropped off the bags, and then were off to the bus station to find the next bus north. After exploring the station we found some tickets for a noon bus from Accra to Cape Coast. The interesting part was that when the bus pulled up we figured out that there were only 52 seats, although one of our tickets was for seat 53 :) I guess they knew what they were doing, because by the time the bus took off every seat was full, and no one seemed to be left behind. They really pack the people in, part of the reserved seats are ones that fold down into the aisle after all the other seats have been loaded.

Three hours of muggy, bumpy, cramped travel concluded when we arrived at the gas station in Cape Coast. Just outside the bus we quenched our thirst with a ‘Choco Fan Milk’ a frozen chocolate treat from a vendor in the parking lot. One of the big differences in Africa is the proliferation of vendors in most all public places, offering everything from a quick snack to a roll of toilet paper. In the same gas station parking lot we met Papa Yeboah, who drove us to the hotel, and we also arranged to meet him the next day to visit the town and castles.
The Coconut Grove Resort was a welcome reprieve from a hot day of traveling, where we found an air conditioned room and chocolate ice cream at the restaurant. The setting was beautiful; the resort was outside of town, making it fairly secluded - which also meant a clean sandy beach (beaches close to town are generally scattered with trash that has either been dumped there, or dumped into the ocean and then washed ashore). We all agreed that the view past the palm trees, over the waves crashing on the rocky outcrops, towards the horizon was one of the most picturesque we had seen in all of our combined travels. We spent a relaxing night chatting by the pool and enjoying a wonderful meal - and we made friends with our waitress Vida. We tried variations on local cuisine that included a great peanut soup, fried plantains, sole, and a dish called ‘Red Red’ that was a spicy rice with mixed in fish pieces. After dinner we headed back to the room for some rest, with Uncle Karsten taking up residence on the floor in the middle room of our ‘family suite.’ They had told us the room was available, and it sounded nice - but when we had come to the room earlier in the day we found out there wasn’t a fifth bed. They wanted another $20 for a mattress for the floor, which was a bit ridiculous given the price of the room, so Uncle Karsten said he’d be happy sleeping on the couch cushions on the floor!

A day in Accra

2006-08-08T14:20:00.000-07:00

Monday morning at the Savannah Inn started off with a quick immersion into our Africa experience. Julianna and I walked out along the beach and met Isaac, our new Rastafarian friend. He showed us his house, played us some rhythms on his drum, and told us about the peanuts and corn they were growing in the sand. Then we headed back to the beach and walked over to the fishing boats. The fishermen had returned from a morning of fishing, and there were a couple hundred people working on pulling in a couple dozen boats. We watched for a while, and then they invited Juilanna to join in and help. It is an amazing process, about 20 men (plus Julianna!) pull on two ropes to the rhythm of a chant that helps coordinate the effort. They pulled in a boat that was 30 feet long or more, up the beach on a pretty good incline. All the men got a good kick out of Julianna helping, and she did good work!
Then we were joined by my mom and Karsten, who were also quite enchanted with the process. When Fifi (the boyfriend of the owner of the hotel we stayed at) also came over then Karsten, Fifi, and I helped with another boat. This time they added a drum to the mix, and I found out how hard the job is, although the rhythmic pulling really distracted from how difficult the work was. Once we finished both Karsten and I got a bit queasy in the stomach from the exertion, and sat down for a while to recover. Then we headed back to the hotel and had home cooked fresh French Toast, which was quite a treat! Beth, the owner of the hotel was quite thrilled to have her first guests (us) and we really enjoyed the stay. Breakfast was sealed with fresh pineapple from a vendor that was walking down the beach. All in all, a great morning.

After a relaxing afternoon at the beach (we watched a movie about a Ghanian man we planned to meet that night) we walked to the main road and caught a taxi into town to visit a market. When we got there we learned that it was a ‘Trade Fair’ and it was the last day for the group of merchants that were there. There were people selling beads, necklaces, cloth, and much more. It was fun to just walk around and watch the people and see the local goods. In some ways the market was ‘authentic’ because it was a collection of Ghanian merchants in town to sell there goods, and not a market that was geared towards tourists (although that also meant it was a little more sterile because it was just a transient group, and people weren’t settled into their stalls and so on).

After a few hours (and some successful purchases) we caught a taxi to the Golden Tulip to meet up for a dinner with Emanuel Yeboah, a man that Karsten had met a few weeks earlier in California at a convention. First though, I got a hair cut at the barber in the hotel (long overdue) and then we had a glass of wine while we waited for them to arrive. In true African style, they got there about an hour late, and Emanuel brought two people with him to join us at dinner. He had an amazing story to tell (part of which we knew from the documentary we had watched earlier in the day). He had been born disabled in a rural Ghanian town, and while usually a disabled child would left for dead, his mother decided to raise him - despite the fact that his father ran off when he saw his disabled child. He bucked all stereotypes throughout his youth, overcoming the disadvantages of having only one leg, culminating with a bike ride across the country that raised awareness that disabled people could be useful beyond begging on the street.

His efforts became famous across Africa, and in the US - and eventually a foundation offered to give him a prosthetic leg. He went on to compete in a triathlon, and continues to do great work in promoting rights and possibilities for disabled people in Ghana. The dinner provided lots of interesting conversation, about future plans, and reflections on his experiences so far (including an appearance on Oprah, and meeting President Bush). At the end of the night they offered us a ride to the airport (to pick up the bag that missed the flight the day before), and then we said our farewells to our new friends.

Aachen to Accra

2006-08-07T14:14:00.000-07:00

After four months in Aachen it felt surreal for that portion of the trip to be ending. One last night on the town with Bjorn lasted until 5AM, follwed by a 6AM wake-up to catch the train to Amsterdam. After sleeping through the alarm, taking a rushed shower, finishing the last bit of packing, and sprinting to the train station, I had 5 minutes to spare to say goodbye to Bjorn and catch my 6:19 train. After that hectic start, once the train headed out it seemed like everything was going to work out...

That lasted until the second train transfer. When I got off my train to check the next transfer I found out that the train had been canceled! That created a problem, given that it was 7AM on Sunday and the ticket office was closed until 11AM (which meant I couldn’t get a new plan to the airport). The only help at the station (besides an out of order ticket machine) was a message on the main board that said ‘take the bus’.

I didn’t have many options, because I needed to get to the airport before noon, so I had to call Bjorn and wake him up - and he came to the rescue with a new set of train transfers. That got me to the Amsterdam airport without further problems, but quite a bit later than planned. The next kink in the day came when I tried to check in for my flight and the computer couldn’t find a passenger with my name... after a half hour with the agent we discovered that my ticket was for the next day! (Although my printed itinerary was for the current day.) $200 later they got me on the flight, which was worth it because Uncle Karsten was also on the same flight and I couldn’t imagine waiting another day to see my parents and Julianna. I got to the gate after they had already started preparing for boarding, and met up with Uncle Karsten there. The flight was great, and I even got to change my seat part way through so that we could sit together.

When we landed in Accra I was quite excited for reunions, after two months apart from Julianna, and a year apart from my parents. After I got my passport stamped I headed towards baggage claim, and as I turned the corner - there was Julianna! After a long hug and much happiness, I found out that she had talked her way in to the baggage claim area by making friends with all the people working there. After a couple of months in Africa she had certainly learned how to make things happen :)

We had to wait a long time for the bags to come out, and after an hour we finally gave up on the last bag and decided that it was lost... so Karsten filled out the forms and dealt with the baggage people. Then we were finally on our way and headed out for a reunion my parents! We walked out the doors and I saw my parents right outside behind the cordoned off area and ran out to give them a hug. It was great to see them after such a long time apart, and we were all excited for the next days together.

We wrapped up a long day of travel with a dinner at the airport and then a cab ride to the hotel on the beach. The place was beautiful - right on the beach, we could hear the waves crashing from our room, and most of all, we were ready for a good night’s rest.

Plans

2006-08-01T09:49:00.000-07:00

I am now in my final days at my summer home, Bujagali. Even after getting incredibly sun-burned, malaria, an unspecific bacterial infection in my blood, and an infected cut on my foot – I have LOVED my experience here. People here are wonderful – as they are anywhere I have had the privilege of living for any amount of time.

On Thursday, I head to Entebbe. I then leave Friday morning at 5am for Nairobi, then from Nairobi to Abidjan (Nigeria), and finally Abidjan to Accra (Ghana). I will spend Friday night alone in Accra and then plan on meeting up with Cate and Wayne on Saturday. Sunday, Dustin and Karsten arrive in Accra. From that point on, I think that it will be Dustin writing the updates of our Ghanaian/Togolese/Egyptian month-long adventure.

Thinking of you all and so looking forward to seeing you in September!

Final Relections on East Africa

2006-08-01T09:48:00.000-07:00

This is my last Sunday in Uganda, here in the safe confines of the Bujagali Falls community. Safety is a funny thing – I have been reflecting on what safety means and how you know you are safe over the past couple of days. While safety means different things at different times, here it means an understanding. I have an understanding of how things work here – when and where to go for food, water, shelter, who to speak with and what to say, how to get out of situations that feel uncomfortable. Understanding runs both ways – I feel understood and cared for here. People in the village know me by name and those at Eden Rock spend long amounts of time chatting with me – I am known here.

But the meaning of safety is context specific. I wonder what defines safety for people in Rwanda – today and ten years ago, for people in Arua, for those in Lebanon and Israel now, for people in New York – especially after 9/11, or for you all in your homes. Safety is fluid – but most of all I think we feel safe when we feel like we have something in common with those in our families, communities, individuals with whom we live – it is in that common human thread that we show concern for others and feel safe ourselves.

For my final reflections from Eastern Africa, this quote seemed to fit. It speaks to the unbearable suffering I have witnessed, the generosity of spirit I have experienced, and the hope for the future we all hold.

This is a call to the living, to those who refuse to make peace with evil, with the suffering and the waste of the world.

This is a call to the human, not to the perfect, to those who know their own prejudices, who have no intention of becoming prisoners of their own limitations.

This is a call to those who remember the dreams of their youth, who know what it means to share food and shelter, the care of children and those who are troubled, to reach beyond barriers of the past bringing people to communion.

This is a call to the never ending spirit of the common man, his essential decency and integrity, his unending capacity to suffer and endure, to face death and destruction and to rise again and build from the ruins of life.

This is the greatest call of all – the call to a faith in people.

~ Algernon D. Black

Reflections on my experience in Arua

2006-07-31T09:48:00.000-07:00

After a high stress 24 hours from Thursday to Friday, I am finally getting back to normal (today is Monday). It was a new sensation for me to feel so markedly unsafe in a place. Sometimes, when I watch scary movies, I can work myself into a tizzy and scare myself, but those around me just call me crazy! I know deep down that it is not a real fear and that nothing is going to happen to me. In Arua, however, for the first time in my life, it was not just me feeling unsafe – it was people native to the region saying that they could not keep me safe. It was very unsettling – so unsettling that I am only now feeling safe here in Bujagali!

When I arrived back in Kampala, I checked my email and saw the email from mom and various emails of concern from many of you. Thank you for your prayers. I went to bed feeling like my situation was tenuous, at best. When I woke up, I felt oddly enveloped in a sense of peace about the situation. I can only think that was your prayers, as I felt that way without knowing that people were praying for me – the sense of peace was not imagined.

In the end, I feel good about trusting my gut and ability to read nonverbal cues across social-cultural borders. It really felt odd in Arua and that feeling was confirmed by the elders’ discussion with Dut. Going to Arua was a changing experience – seeing Dut so happy and reunited with his dad was and is irreplaceable. It has also altered the way I think about the kinds of research I will be able to do. I am most interested in places that are recently post-conflict. Granted, Arua is still in a marginal conflict zone, but even that was too much for me. I am now in a funny place, wondering how to mold my research questions into ones that I can answer from a safe(r) distance. I guess Rainer Maria Rilke’s quote – listed below – is pretty applicable to and for me now:
I beg you… to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.

Arua

2006-07-28T09:44:00.000-07:00

Going to a place that is known to be unstable requires careful preparation and gathering of information. When we found out that Dut’s father was in Arua, in Northwest Uganda, we were thrilled! Dut was going to be able to see his dad soon, and it was possible for me to accompany him; it was especially serendipitous because I was feeling sad that I was not going to be able to be a part of that process as well.

Arua is unstable because it is on the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), two hours from the border with Sudan, and in the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) territory. The DRC had its first “democratic” elections in 40 years on Friday, July 28. Anytime there are elections in any of these countries, the situation has a heightened intensity. There are expectations about rigged elections and corruption matched with hopes for peaceful transitions of power. The LRA is currently in negotiations with the Ugandan government in Southern Sudan; the LRA was funded by the Sudanese government (a part of the intricate proxy warfare which has dominated the region for the past 20 – 40 years). The Sudanese government, as a part of their own peace agreement with the Southern Sudanese rebels (Dinka – the tribe that Dut belongs to), agreed with the Ugandan government to stop funding the LRA. So, the LRA is backed into a corner and grasping at political straws at the peace talks… And the leader of the LRA – Joseph Kony – is currently holed up in NE DRC (near Arua). Needless to say, lots was (and is) going on in and around Arua.

Before heading north, I checked with lots of locals to find out about the situation on the ground. Often, I have found that these folks have a much more accurate sense of the situation than do “we.” I also did some checking online – and after all of that, decided that going was safe. Additionally, if the situation turned sour, I felt I could get out fast and safely, particularly if I kept my nose to the ground – keeping abreast of any changes.

We were off! With no ID checks, the three of us – Ayuen, Dut, and me – climbed onto a small prop plan and headed North. We were all so excited. I was tipped off to the situation in Arua when we first got on the plane – Dut and Ayuen, and me by association – were treated badly by some Ugandans. There was open seating, and I saw a man looking for a comfortable seat. So, I pointed him to the seat in front of Dut and said that it was free if he wanted it. Dut had placed his bag there as he was getting situated – the man said to Dut, “you did not pay for this seat. Move your bag.” Dut said that he knew that and moved it promptly. The man said “you are guaranteed an uncomfortable flight, bringing all of your luggage.” I responded that they were moving, so needed to bring many pieces of luggage. He then said something more about “you people” and turned around in a huff. During the flight, Dut told me in a hushed voice that people in Arua and Northern Uganda generally really don’t like Dinkas. He assumed that was what this man’s problem was.

We went through the rest of the flight without a hitch. When we were deplaning, I offered to the man to get off first as we had many things to get together. His reply was “next time, don’t bring so much luggage. It is an inconvenience.” I was so shocked by what he said – and Dut was angered but equally shocked – we did not respond. Things did not get any easier when we got off the plane.

We were met not with grinning happy faces and people meeting one another but a stiffness which permeated the atmosphere. Everyone seemed anxious and there were lots of men with guns. And, the man from the plane was staring at Dut like he was the most evil person. I was pretty angry – what did this man know? I returned his stare with an equal “don’t mess with me or my friends” stare. We had quite the staring match – but I think that he has had more practice. I gave up.

Dut’s “family” (loosely termed as everyone is a cousin, it seems) met us at the airport. Again, everything was reserved – not reserved sad like in Rwanda, but reserved anxious. This was not looking good…

We then drove around Arua, looking for a place to stay. Everywhere we went, people had guns – not like in S. Uganda, where people also have guns. In the south, the guns are treated as if they are never used. In Arua, people seemed too comfortable with them – as if they are used, and often. We found a place; while I was filling the paperwork, Dut’s cousin Awar came in and was convinced that we were getting cheated out of our money. Another signal that things were not alright here in Arua – there was such a strong assumption that one was being cheated… there was limited trust of one another. I had Dut take Awar out of the reception area because the situation felt like it was escalating too quickly – and it was not yet 10 in the morning.

After a frazzling morning, we headed with Dut’s cousins to the local government hospital. Here, people can get care for free. While we walked down the streets, we were certainly stared at. However, I took little notice of that as I was fascinated by Dut and watching him interact in this environment. Clearly, he is quite respected in the community. The Dinka that were with us walked on all sides of us as we marched into the hospital. Of course, Ayuen and I were in the back as the men had very important things to discuss :). As soon as we entered the hospital grounds, we heard people moaning and crying in pain. There were so many people – all bandaged, some with swollen faces or hobbling along a garden path. My heart just broke for these folks, but it was also evident that they were cared for in a (relatively) clean environment. There just is not an adequate amount of funding to treat everyone as they ought to be, but at least they are clean if not cramped.

We walked into one of the wards – beds stacked everywhere with little room between. People were getting wounds cleaned – clearly a painful process. The first person we met was Dut’s uncle who displayed more emotion than Dut and Ayuen combined when they met. His uncle cried and just kept gently, but persistently, hugging Dut. This was the reunification that I was expecting with Ayuen – but as I found later, Dinka women display very little emotion. It is the men who are excited, happy, sad, or angry. Dut then met his cousin, also named Dut. Little Dut was in the hospital, having been brought here by his dad (Dut’s uncle) from Sudan, because his arm had swollen to three times its size from an insect bite.

After two hours of talking – everyone sat on the hospital bed – Dut and I talked with the doctor. The doctor said that he did not know what he was treating with Little Dut and recommended that Dut take the Uncle and Little Dut to the main hospital in Kampala. At least in Kampala, there are laboratories which can conduct tests to ascertain what exactly is wrong with Little Dut. With that, we made plans to leave on Saturday or Sunday for Kampala with the family.

We ventured back on the streets to walk to where the Dinka community lives. It was about a ten minute walk from where we were staying but it was HOT. It is much hotter in Northern Uganda than the south, interestingly. As we approached the clustering of huts and cement shacks, people started greeting Dut, Ayuen, and me. They then would walk with us. By the time we arrived at where Dut’s father was, we had multiplied our group to around 35 people! Dut was thrilled by all of the people – he knew so many as he talked on the phone with them but had not seen them since he was a child.

As we rounded the corner, there was Dut’s dad. He was just standing there, waiting for his son to come to him. It was as if he was filled to the brim of emotion; once Dut reached him and touched him, he simply burst with an incomparable joy. For those of you who are parents, know that what you can imagine experiencing when being reuniting with your son after 19 years of separation (during which you thought your son had died) is what I witnessed in Jongkuch. Just thinking of it now brings tears to my eyes and warms my heart. Dut was hugging him, Jongkuch was dancing and singing, and everyone was standing around smiling at the wonderful sight unfolding before them. As soon as the hug ended, Jongkuch went around to the rest of the houses, singing and dancing “his song” and telling everyone that his son had returned. We could hear him for twenty minutes. Meanwhile, people were steaming to meet Dut – kids, women, and men. Everyone wanted to see Dut and greet him. It was a powerful sight.

As this was happening, chairs of all sorts were being gathered and placed in a circle. Once Jongkuch returned, all were gathered. First, I was thanked by one of the elders and by Dut’s father for bringing him home safely. (I was thinking that I had little to do with his survival up to this point, but the translation would have been difficult and inappropriate!) Jongkuch was very charismatic and gave quite a speech. The most memorable parts were his use of animals to get his point across. When Dut was first lost in 1987, Jongkuch said that he was like a dog searching for his tail – chasing after it but never reaching it. Now, he wished he was a dog so I could see how happy he was – his tail would be wagging. Ayuen translated everything for me, as it was all said in Dinka.

After two hours of stories in Dinka (and outside under the glaring sun), I was exhausted. Dut and I had previously talked about how I was going to need some time alone after such a full experience, so I excited as gracefully as possible and by myself. Whew! I headed back to our motel to rest and wait for my parents’ phone call. After hanging out there for a few hours, I decided to walk around town a bit and then head back to Dut.

Walking around Arua was strange and hostile. In any other place I have been in East Africa, people stare because I am white and sometimes alone. The difference is that those stares are friendly and curious. I often find some way to make fun of myself and situation – doing some little dance to make them all laugh at the mzungu and the fact that all are staring at me. In Arua, however, it was entirely different. The stares were hostile, anxious, and untrusting. Rather than enjoying being the center of attention, I almost broke down and started crying – that is how uncomfortable the situation was.

I booked it back to Dut. Immediately, I felt better being in a place where I was known and with Dut. Immediately, a man wanted to know if I had any children and wished me many sons as girls were not desirable. Oh man! It was the wrong time to say that to me – I got a little argumentative, saying that maybe he felt that way but I would equally welcome a son or daughter, as they are equal in my eyes. To which he responded that I didn’t know what I was talking about! It was weird – like being acceptably slapped in the face in public. Very strange.

During this conversation, the elder of the village asked to meet with Dut. He told Dut that they had protection for the village, but not enough to keep me safe (or the others around me safe while I was there). Yikes. We immediately headed back to our place, escorted by 15 large Dinka men, some holding my hand. It did not feel good at all.

We made it back and quickly locked the door. I did not want to speak for then our neighbors would know that I, a mzungu, was there. After a conference call with my dad and Dustin, we all decided that it would be best for me to get the heck out of dodge. It simply was not safe nor stable there for me.

After a dodgy night’s sleep, during which I had a nightmare about Dinkas fighting in the streets of Arua with local Ugandans, I awoke. Dut and I took the first bodas we found and headed to the airport. I luckily got a ticket and headed south. Once in Entebbe, I was able to catch my breath and gratefully feel safe again.

The Reunification of Ayuen and Dut

2006-07-24T09:43:00.000-07:00

With irresistible excitement, I went to pick Ayuen up at her school to bring her with me to Bujagali. She did not know that I was coming – nor did she know that Dut was coming the following day! What a fun bit of news to share with her! After picking her up and bringing her back to Eden Rock with me, we tucked in for an anxious night’s sleep.

The following morning, Evie (my friend who agreed to take pictures at the airport), Ayuen, and I struck out on the road. Evie and I were balls of nerves and excitement – Ayuen was calm. At first, we thought she must be excited but the language barrier was making it hard for us to understand that… But no – she was really normal. It was weird – but I suppose in Western culture, we are exposed to stories, movies, and tales of reunification experiences. They seem to us be abnormal and emotional. For her, she hears often of people be reunified with loved ones – it is not so strange and exciting. For us, we had expectations about what it would feel like to meet a brother whom we had never met – but it was unclear what she was thinking about it. It was a really interesting three hour drive to Entebbe.

When we arrived at the airport, we went inside to find out where the arrivals came. At thirty minutes ‘till Dut’s arrival, Ayuen seemed to be getting increasingly excited, asking questions like “are you sure that this is the only door?” and when people were coming through, looking at me as if I might not remember what he looks like. The three of us were quite the threesome – Evie with the camera, Ayuen by the door, and me – the only one who knows Dut – trying to track all of the people coming out. In that situation, I started to wonder if maybe I would forget what Dut looked like – it was so important. However, I spotted him through the gate, heading for luggage and cried out “there he is!” We all got pretty excited. Ayuen was holding my hand – her palm was sweaty, but her face was stoic, as if there was nothing to see here. Weird.

Dut started walking down the corridor entrance – about 100 feet, so we had a build-up. Dut walked towards us like it was nothing – he did have a big smile on his face, but he did not seem to be in too much of a rush. I had completely lost it by that point – I was crying so much that my entire face was wet :). Ayuen just waited patiently… Dut finally made it to the door and then he seemed excited – so excited that he left his baggage behind the security door. Ayuen and Dut stood at the entrance for about five minutes hugging and looking at each other and hugging and looking at each other… I went to get the baggage – everyone seemed so happy (while we were waiting, we told everyone around us what was about to happen, so the entire entrance gate was sharing in our reunification experience).

We headed to the car with the luggage and settled in for the car ride home. Dut and Ayuen barely looked at each other in the eyes and did not speak much to one another. Dut, in fact, spoke more to me and Evie (whom he had just met) than he did to Ayuen. I suppose they were adjusting to one another’s presence.

It was truly one of the experiences that I will carry with me for the rest of my life, as with many moments I have had on this trip. War is a terrible thing – people die, families are split up, and countries are devastated in many ways. It was amazing to have the juxtaposition of Rwanda and the reunification so close together. Dut had talked to me about meeting his sister for the past three years every two weeks, so there was an intense buildup. I knew that this was the most important part of the trip for Dut; I was so honored to be a part of the process.

Rwanda

2006-07-23T09:08:00.000-07:00

My final days in Rwanda were markedly less traumatic than the first ones. Maybe my brain was shutting down… or I was finding it easier to see hopeful signs of a future rather than the burdens of the past. I have heard that some people are afraid that I will be forever marred by my experience in Rwanda – I hope so. It is not a place that I went to thinking that I would be unaffected. I went hoping to push myself to see the evil that exists in our world and within each of us. The majority of the Rwandans who massacred their fellow humans are not fundamentally different from “us.” Thinking that “we” could never do something so horrendous seems to deny the basic principle that everyone on this planet is human -- we are the same. It is just as likely to spiral into violence as it is to care deeply for one another. I am not sure what turns the tide – why the Rwandan genocide happened – but I am sure that we are capable in equal measure. The sense that we are capable of such evil is revolting but also enlightening – how do we make choices to do good or to do evil? How do we decide what counts as good or evil? Who gets to decide?

This ground swelling of questions about my core self and the core selves of others was exhausting. We headed to Western Rwanda to Lake Kivu. Kibuye, the town where we stayed, is in the region where the highest number of Tutsis was killed. For those of you who have read The Bone Woman, this is the location of the church she writes about. The ride out to Kibuye took three hours of climbing mountain-like passes, complete with blind corners and hairpin turns – on which the driver often went to the wrong side of the road. On the way down the mountain, he would build speed to save gas. I literally prayed the entire way. Once in Kibuye, we headed to a Methodist retreat center and all slept for the entire afternoon, had dinner, and then slept for ten hours.

The next morning, we went to the two memorials in the town where 10,000 people were burned to death and the church where 11,400 people were killed in one day – by hand. You would think that these places would be more overwhelming than Ntarama – more people were killed. However, it was strangely underwhelming. The place where the 10,000 people were killed is in the town center, with a football (soccer) field on one side and a church/school on the other. Children were playing in the grassy area within the brick confines of the cemetery. It felt so full of life; it is healing to have a generation which has no memory of the atrocities claim the land as its own. The second memorial – the Catholic Church – made me feel something unnamed and unfamiliar. The church is still functioning and quite striking inside. Directly outside, the government built a memorial, complete with exposed bones, to remind the parishioners of the evil that occurred there. The distasteful part to me was that the church is still functioning – it seems wrong. How could a church continue to provide for a community? Or, better yet – what is the church providing there?

On the way back to Kigali (as with the trip there), I was struck by the number of memorials. Every 20 miles or so, there is another genocide memorial. Occasionally, we would drive by people dressed in their Sunday-best, sitting around on a hillside. These were (and are) the famous “Gacaca” (Ga – cha- cha) trials, known as “Justice on the Grass.” Rather than the Nuremberg trial-type, Rwanda has chosen to go back to its tribal roots to resolve the legalistic problems the genocide created. Thousands of genocidaires (those that committed atrocities) are in jail – and each has a Gacaca trial. It is a trial of their peers in front of the community. It is a pretty neat system, but the government currently estimates that it will take 400 years to get through everyone, so it is untenable.

On our final night in Kigali, we went back the New Cactus restaurant. In Rwanda, we had the best food we have had in Africa. During dinner, we reflected on Rwanda – it is a sad and reserved people, all trying to figure out how to deal with the past and move forward. In this emotionally difficult space, those that we befriended were some of the most gentle, honest, helpful, and gracious that we have met.

Ntarama

2006-07-19T16:27:00.000-07:00

Ntarama is almost too hard to write about because it requires remembering what I saw today. And remembering is an isolating experience – seeing the results of that kind of brutality makes you feel like humans are separated beings who cannot see one another for who they are. Remembering is difficult because my brain wants to keep veering off the track to think about what I am going to eat for dinner, when I am going to talk to Dustin, what funny joke are people laughing about, and whatever else can I think of other than that which I am trying to remember…

Prior to April 15, 1994, 5000+ men, women, and children fled their villages for the safety of their spiritual home – the Ntarama Catholic Church. From the beginning of the genocide, Tutsis had been hearing others die around them and were grasping for a safe place. If only they could make it to their church, surely Father would keep them safe from harm. After bringing their belongings to the church, Father charged a small fee to keep the masses fed and put all in the church – a building 24ft by 200ft long. Some people stayed in the three outbuildings. On the night of April 14, the doors to the church were locked as where those of the outbuildings. People believed it was for their safety from the Hutu extremist Interhamwe.

It started with the grenades being thrown in the church through the windows. No one could escape. Grenades exploded – for those that were not killed instantly, they were burned and mutilated by the shrapnel which was released. Because of the density of the people, there were survivors – most near the altar. They were wrapped in mattresses in groups of six and doused in petrol. They burned to death. Those that still were alive were macheted until they were dead. There were some survivors, but they hid under the dead bodies of their families for days, hoping (praying?) that they would live.

In the outbuildings, the small one was hit with grenades until no sound was heard. The large one had the doors locked, and then was set on fire. Everyone died.

5000+ people died at this site, all at the hands of the Father who promised safety, charged them money, plundered their goods, and then had the Hutu Interhamwe kill all. The Father is now living in Europe.

Walking up to the site, I felt a deep chill run through my body and felt like I was hearing people whisper “surely God will save us” which turned to hearing whispering of cries of agony. I walked through each outbuilding first before entering the church. One was empty, save flower in one corner. Another is full of debris left from the fire 12 years ago. The last has the stacks of belongings, each neatly organized and numbered placed between pews in what must have been a small chapel.

Unknowingly, I entered in a fourth outbuilding. Immediately I was surrounded by the piles and piles of bones of the dead – two piles, seemingly one for the torso and head and the other for the arms and legs. I almost vomited. Then I looked up – hanging from the ceiling were the remnants of the clothes people were wearing – hanging and in piles all around the bones. What do you wear when you are dying? What do you wear to where you think is safe? What do you bring with you? And then, in the center, were the piles of bones. For fifteen minutes, I stood in the midst of this life/death and cried. These were people who wore clothes and who died brutal, humiliating deaths in a place which signifies safety from harm – God. Where was God in all of this? What were these people thinking when they were attacked, waiting in the pews for nightfall, thinking that they would see another day?

At long last, I entered the church. Immediately on the right, there is a poster of John Paul – full of grenade holes. Rows of skulls greet you – mother’s skulls with those of their infants, people killed by machetes (you can see where the macheted sliced their heads open), one with a spear through its neck and top of the skull – all staring and bearing witness to the terrible end that they met and we allowed. I cannot help but feel responsible for the deaths because of my ignorance and our collective human lack of action to help them. From the skulls, you look up the church. In between each pew, there are bones and remains from those who died. Light filters in through the grenade holes. The altar has a cross and skull sitting askew on it. Behind the altar is the box where the host is kept after being blessed.

The place makes me feel faint – even just in my recollection of it. It is raw, raw, raw. There is nothing stylized or touristy or helpful. Everything presents itself as it is – human action gone horribly wrong.

And those that victimized and were victims now live next door to each other. Everywhere I look today, I think about the people I see and wonder how they are surviving, forgetting, remembering, forgiving, apologizing… What do you do? Someone said that it is almost like the Rwandese got slapped in the face during a discussion and just chose to ignore it. Trying to talk about it too much makes the hatred come back. And the hatred does not solve the immediate need to live in peace.

I am realizing that as interested as am in how people are able to live together in post-conflict societies, I may not have a strong enough heart for it all. I am not sure that I can be thinking about such academically interesting questions in a detached manner – especially now.

Kigali Genocide Memorial

2006-07-18T16:27:00.000-07:00

The Memorial is located up a dusty road with police officers greeting you at the gate. It is a big pale yellow building surrounded by fountains, flowers, and three mass graves. Inside the building, the story of the genocide is told. After my morning with Innocent, I was more prepared for the depth with which this country was going to force me to think about atrocities and hope.

The museum part of the memorial powerfully and provocatively told the story of Rwanda, its history, identity construction, and the unfolding of the genocide. There were many touch screens which should various short films of people’s testimonies, footage from April 1994 of people killing others, and brief glimpses of people and their fresh wounds. It was real and raw. I felt like my insides were being churned and my brain kept wanting to shut off. All I could think was that we let this happen. We did nothing to stop it. We are complicit and responsible. Or, we are not human in our devaluing of other people’s lives. It was not and is not “their” problem. People died and suffered in a way that the museum made so actual and real.

After walking through the genocide story, you enter a room full of skulls and bones with a woman whispering the names of those one million people who were killed. Then another room, with displays of clothing which people were wearing when they died. This is not a country for those who cannot handle to power of inaction by the world community – and in fact, I am not sure that I am able to process such atrocities which happened (and are happening) during my lifetime. The final room is full of pictures of the deceased and one wall showing testimonies of family members to those who perished. One man talked about the last meal his mother brought to him. A woman talked about what good parents hers were – and how much her sisters meant to her. There were so many stories… And a Rwandan woman who seemed to find a relative in the wall of pictures, crying during the process.

The upstairs of the museum had two exhibits – one about genocide in general and the other about Rwanda’s lost future. In the lost future exhibit, there were pictures of children (the most recent picture the parents had) who were killed with their names, favorite food and activity, best friend, and age listed. At the bottom of the card, it stated how they died: “Felicite, Age 2, Favorite Food: Matoke, Best Friend: older sister Rebecca, Died: Thrown Against a Wall… Patricie, Age 6, Favorite Food: ice cream, Died: Hacked to Death by a Machete…” and on, and on for six rooms.

Innocent

2006-07-18T16:26:00.000-07:00

Innocent is the night front desk worker. He is from Northern Rwanda – Ruhengeri – and now resides here in Kigali with six of his family members. All other family was killed in 1994. He spent two hours telling me story over breakfast. People can be jailed for talking about “Hutus” and “Tutsis,” and he agreed after a long talk the night before to help me understand the genocide better, resulting in our morning chat.

At the age of 10, Innocent first realized he was different from his classmates. Of his 60 school agemates, he was the only Tutsi. Before taking a major Rwandan Education test, each student had to stand and state his name and tribe. Innocent, trying to figure out what was going on, repeated what he had heard every other student say – something called “Hutu.” When he said that, his teacher spat on him and yelled at him to go and find out who he was.

Three years later, in 1990, men were sent to assassinate his father. Fate, luck, or God – something happened – his dad died of natural causes days before the men showed up in the village. The men were told that Innocent’s dad was already dead, so they did not come to kill the father (and likely the family).

Most nights between 1990 and 1993, people came banging on the door – requiring that Innocent’s family come out (and be slaughtered). They lay in silence.

In 1993, Innocent and his mom, four sisters, and two brothers, moved to Kigali. Being Tutsis in Northern Rwanda was proving to be much more difficult and dangerous as the Tutsi (aka Rwandan Patriotic Front – RPF) insurgency attacks from Uganda into Rwanda were increasing (resulting in retaliatory attacks against resident Tutsis by angered Hutus).

April 1994 arrived. Innocent and his family were living in a small mud hut, barely surviving but at least healthy and together. Their hut was next to the stadium in a Hutu neighborhood. They had gone to the market days prior and some food in the house. Noises were heard in the evening – the start of the genocide. Innocent and his family closed all of the windows and doors and lay in absolute silence – the first night of a 30 day stay in darkness.

All around them, people were being hacked to death, beaten, raped, and left for dead. The family could peak through the cracks and see people dying and could not help. To open the door meant certain death for the individual and family. Innocent only would go out a night to quickly go to the bathroom, walking over bodies and praying no one would see him. After one week of high anxiety and stress, he started sleeping better – no use in not sleeping. If God willed his death, he would die, tired or not.

By the third week, there was no food left for the seven people surviving in the hut. A Hutu friend came and said that the RPF (Tutsi) had secured the stadium and food was there. Starving and scared, the seven left their safe refuge (soon to be destroyed by Hutu Interhamwe), climbing over dead and dying bodies for 1 km. Innocent said the stench was unbearable. Walking by those bodies taught him that bodies are simply vessels and not to be overly treasured.

Safely making it to the stadium, they stayed there for three months. The Interhamwe continuously bombed the stadium, resulting in burials of 5 – 30 people every day. There was food – but not much. Another friend showed them to a house (in a former Hutu neighborhood – everyone had fled) and brought them food everyday. This friend was an RPF fighter who loved Innocent’s sister, so he helped the family.

By July, the RPF finally had control of the country and Kigali, and things were ‘safe.’ The whole city smelled of rotting flesh. People were in shock and nothing was working. Innoncent said it took four years to clean everything.

He, however, harbors no fear or hatred. He said that he cannot live in Ruhengeri because he does not feel safe, but he does feel safe in Kigali. He sometimes feels a slight bit of anger but that is not the way forward. Killing only leads to more killing, according to him.

Heavy, heavy stuff… Rwanda is not a country to be taken lightly. Everyone you see that is my age (25ish) or older was alive and either has ‘adult’ memories of the genocide or participated. Every three – five people that you pass on the streets have machete scars on their faces and bodies. Everyone has a story like this – either as a victim or victimizer. Yet, people still smile.

The Nine Hour Bus Ride

2006-07-17T16:25:00.000-07:00

Ready to sit for an extremely LONG time, Evie and I settled into our seats in our ‘comfort’ coach (which was actually quite comfortable – go figure!). The first three hours were smooth and easy… The coach EVEN HAD A TV. They first showed a soap opera of a Ugandan film – so I napped. Evie was doing her own thing when her phone rang; this presented a slight problem as the volume on the TV was so loud that I was wearing ear plugs and STILL could hear everything… The solution to the loudness was Evie yelling to the front of the bus, requesting them to turning it down and stating that it was “as loud as f**k.” Oh dear, thought I. We got lots of funny stares, but I pretended to be asleep, Evie got to talk on the phone, and we just looked like even crazier mzungus (we were the only ones on the bus).

After that slight incident, they put on a Harrison Ford film, which was great – something like Clear and Present Danger or some such thing, but not. It involved lots of military, shooting, and tension. I was so happy to have a taste of America until I started thinking about who else was in the audience with me… Mostly Rwandans, probably many had lived through the genocide and had seen what was being played on TV in real life. It felt strange to be there, watching this with that particular group of people.

At long last, we eventually arrived at the border. I risked changing money (and got a GREAT exchange rate – thanks mom!). After leaving Uganda, we waited in the Rwanda entry line. We were promptly escorted to the front and then taken next door to the Rwandan Revenue Authority to get our visa, which both Evie and I thought we did not have to get due to our citizenship status (as it turned out, we were right). The woman behind the desk insisted that we had to get a $60 visa, so we paid, thinking that we did not need to apply for a visa, but did, indeed, need one. After getting the receipt for payment, we had to head back to the border entry desk to get the official stamp, at which point all h-e-double-hockey-sticks broke loose.

An official came up to the group of Americans that I was taking to (informing them about needing to have the $60 ready, as we did have to pay to get a visa) and said that, no, no visa was required for American or British citizens. Entry to Rwanda was free. Good to know! So, we promptly asked for our money back as we had been wrongly charged and had the receipt (reasonable, right?). The official, Amos, said that was impossible!! I thought that was incredulous, but Evie would not stand for it. She started yelling at this man in front of all of the people waiting in line (approximately 100+) saying that she did not “give a monkey’s a**” what he said, she was getting her money back and that it was not up for discussion. Well, to that, he walked away and headed for his office (I think he was embarrassed and wanted to get out of the pressure-cooker situation where everyone know knew that we had been screwed out of $120 and he was not going to help).

So, playing the good cop (Evie took the bad cop hat!), I followed him and said that I was not mad but really concerned about how to get my money back. I said that I understood that it was not his fault, but could he please help us figure out a solution with the lady who had taken our money? He acquiesced and came with us to the RRA office. We arrived at the RRA office with Amos, the head of the immigration office, a really angry Evie, and me. The lady first denied having taken our money and then when we produced the receipt, she said that she did not say that we had to pay. I was shocked to have someone lie so blatantly to everyone. After 20 minutes of negotiations and some harsh words between Evie and the lady, Amos sorted things out. As it turned out, there was also a Zimbabwean woman who works in SPOKANE also waiting in line. She was a huge help. We finally got our money back – and thanked our lucky stars that we were not entirely swindled!

After arriving back at the bus, we had a good long laugh.

We finally arrived in Kigali and a woman on the bus, Nuri, gave us a ride to our Hotel and helped us figure out the rates. She and her family are simply LOVELY – we had a very nice time talking with the four of them for about an hour and are planning on meeting them for dinner on Wednesday or Friday…

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

2006-07-16T16:25:00.000-07:00

I woke up feeling ready to be 25 and to head to Rwanda. I started packing at 5:30am, when Fred came round to my tent to wish me a Happy Birthday. What a great way to start the day! Then, that was immediately followed by a phone call from my parents, each singing happy birthday to me. Yay!!! However, while on the phone with my parents, I discovered MOLD all over the inside of my backpack… This resulted in a three hour scrubbing session of my backpack, tent, and belongings. I was very DIRTY as there was also a dust storm during the night, covering everything in red dust. Oh well – it was my birthday and nothing was going to get me down. And heck, I was of on an adventure anyway!

By noon, Evie and I were off to Kampala. We checked into our hostelish place and headed to the main city market. What fun! Evie is quite the bargainer and wanted to buy a bunch of skirts, so I had a great time watching her chat with locals and try to get relatively good deals. I also got a black linen skirt – I hate bartering, though, so I mostly just watched her do business. For my birthday present, Evie took me to dinner at the Kampala Sheraton where we had a three course meal and a bottle of wine. We even had ICE CREAM (almost an impossibility in Uganda due to the inconsistent electricity). By 10pm, we were tuckered and headed to bed…

An Attitude of Gratitude

2006-07-15T16:23:00.000-07:00

Saturday evening was full of beautifully touching moments. My dear friend Japan had invited me to visit his home. Japan is one of my Muslim friends who works on the site. He is 48 with two wives and 20 children! (Japan is a nickname given to him by his friends, as he works as hard as the Japanese.) Every day, he rides his bike 20 km to get to and from work (40 km in all). He is gentle, kind, and smart – really a favorite person of mine.

Since Japan lives so far away, the builders were worried that I would get lost finding his village. The assistant foreman for the site – Julius – offered to take me on his motorcycle. Julius is equally nice; he is 32 (?) with two children and one wife. He is very well educated and has been immensely helpful in explaining things and translating for me.

So, Saturday Julius was planning on arriving at 2pm. But, this is Africa, and things are never easy. On his way to pick me up, his chain broke and he spent three hours fixing it. Finally at 5pm, he picked me up, and we were off. After a half an hour ride down many dirt roads, we made it to Japan’s two homes (one for each wife). Clearly, Mzungus rarely, if ever, make it out this far in the boonies, so I was quite the center of attention. Immediately after arriving, we were surrounded by, no joke, 50 children. As it turned out, ALL of the children were Japan’s and his brother’s. CRAZY. One of the eldest boys went to get Japan (he was working in the fields). I took pictures on the digital (also quite a hit) while waiting. No one spoke English (except Julius)… Soon, Japan arrived and was SO PLEASED that we had made it. He had told his entire family that a Mzungu friend was coming to visit, and he thought I was not going to show, given the lateness of the day. He was so happy to introduce me to his family and neighbors, show me his home, and have his picture taken. It is the small things that count here in such a big way.

Right before we had to leave (only having been there for 1.5 hours – it was getting dark and motorcycles at night at just not a great idea), Japan’s son came running in with two warm cokes and two chapattis. He had run to the nearest trading center to get us the food and drink. Japan knew that I really could not eat the food that was made at his house, so he spent two days of his salary getting me something that he knew I liked and could eat. Julius and I quickly downed the cokes and had to leave… Just so sweet. Unbelievable.

Getting back to Eden Rock, I sat down to dinner (my friends who work at Eden Rock had my dinner waiting for me!) and chatted with Nelson, Brian, and Fred. These guys are all employees who have really helped me out (especially when I had Malaria). I was telling them about Rwanda and that I was leaving tomorrow. They were all quite sad, as they were excited that I was to spend my birthday with them (which I did not know until that point). As it turned out, each had gotten me a birthday PRESENT. Nelson and Fred are going to give me my gifts when I get home, but Brian got me an artificial red flower in a pink plastic vase with fiber optics coming out. He was so proud of the gift – he had made a special trip to town to get it for me. How lucky am I to have such a caring group of friends, eh?

I went to bed immensely satisfied and warm all over. So much gracious giving, all in one day.

Rwanda?

2006-07-14T16:08:00.000-07:00

I am now officially a quarter-of-a-century. My weekend was full of ups and downs – I was finally recovering from Malaria and missing the comforts of home (and friends and family gathered to celebrate my birthday). While there were some downer moments, there were equally many high points, many quintessentially African.

Everything felt difficult on Friday. While it is true that doing anything in Africa takes much more effort, planning, and patience than Western life, I was loving every moment… until Friday. Nothing particularly bad happened – but I was just done with the whole experience!

As a result of this, I went to the only place for MILES that has high speed internet and treated myself to fast email and a slice of chocolate cake. The place is called Jinja Nile Resort, and it is where another volunteer, Evie (Yvette) stays. As I was recovering from my personal pity party, Evie showed up. We headed to the bar for a glass of vino to chat… Well one glass turned into four :) and then dinner…

After much talking and laughing, we decided that it would be a GREAT idea to head to Rwanda together in two days time (on Sunday). With renewed excitement about being in such a great place, I fell sound asleep, ready to pack and plan a new adventure.

I awoke ready to face Africa anew. My newly optimistic attitude proved vital, as trying to plan the trip for five hours resulted in no progress – internet problems, phone issues, lack of electricity, and little information. Thankfully, I thought it was all quite funny and so typical. Evie and I decided that we could handle the unknowns together – it is much easier to do so when you have a travel partner. We went our separate ways to pack.

The Big M

2006-07-14T06:11:00.000-07:00

This year has been the kicker for getting sick for me. In February, I had Influenza, May was Lyme Disease, and July is Malaria. Who knows what will come next?

I think that I have had Malaria since Thursday (July 6). I was feeling low energy Thursday through Sunday, but I did not have a fever (a classic symptom of Malaria). On Sunday, the 'you know what' hit the fan, and I was really sick - as if someone had sucker punched me in the stomach and the effect lasted for 12 hours. I thought it was something that I had eaten (as I had a meal with a local family on Sunday), but others were convinced that it was Malaria. On Monday, I walked (barely) to the clinic where they did a few tests. As it turned out, I had (and have) "small malaria." I guess that means that my Malaria parasite is the less serious kind. There is a four - seven day treatment period, so I hope to be better by tomorrow.

While there were times when I was hoping that I could be like Dorothy, and click my heels together three times, say "There's no place like home, there's no place like home, there's no place like home," I really would not want to get Malaria anywhere else. This is Malaria-central, so there is a lot of information and proper treatment available. Practically every local person and any long-term volunteer has had Malaria at least once (one of the mzungus - Jack, the barman - has had malaria 57 times!), so people know what to expect and how to help. The clinic is actually on the same site where I am working on building the education center. I feel very well taken care of by the other volunteers, the staff at Eden Rock (where I am staying), and the clinic.

All of the good care I have received should not cloud the fact that Malaria is the number one or two killer in Uganda - and in particular this region. In the past week, I know of four mzungu volunteers who had contracted Malaria. On average, children have Malaria four to six times per year. As the child grows (if it makes it though each subsequent bout of Malaria), its body acquires some immunity. It is a very serious, yet highly preventable and treatable. Malaria is spread by mosquitoes, and the best way to prevent Malaria is to prevent bites from mosquitoes. Using DEET, wearing long-sleeved shirts and pants at dawn and dusk, and sleeping under a net are the best defenses (and for those of us who have the money, taking prophylactics). Most people who die from Malaria are the very young or very old - those that have weakened immune systems and cannot fight off the bug.

Often, these sick individuals are only brought to clinics when they are within days or hours of death - clinic visits and stays are usually cost prohibitive (sometimes even more than a year's income of manual labor). In fact, one of my good friends, Japan (a builder on the site) missed work one day because his sister had lost her two year old girl to Malaria. The extent to which Malaria affects the people who live here should not be underestimated.

Soft Power has two branches - Soft Power Education (SPE) and Soft Power Health (SPH). I am working with SPE, building the education center. SPH, on the other hand, runs the clinic (from whom I received treatment). SPH's clinic has a good reputation in the area - the villagers trust the clinic, and it is busy every day. A visit to the clinic costs 5000Ush ($2.75), which is approximately two days' wages. In addition to providing quality, affordable treatment (a basic human right, in my estimation), they also sell mosquito nets. Nets in the city cost around 10,000 - 12,000 ($5 - $6), which is too much for many locals. SPH did a study and found that many villagers would be willing to pay 3000Ush ($1.50) for the net. So, SPH subsidizes the nets and sells them to locals. It then does follow-up visits with those to whom the nets have been sold to verify that (1) they are using them correctly and every night, and (2) they have not resold the nets for a profit. Apparently the follow-up curbs the reselling enough for the program to continue, and I am sure that many of the people buy the nets because they need them. Another measure to safeguard the nets from being resold is having locals hired by SPH to build relationships with villagers to educate about net usage and Malaria prevention. Since SPH started the net distribution, the incidence of Malaria in this region has fallen by 2/3.

I cannot sing the praises more of the this amazing organization. Soft Powerhas its heart and head in the right place. I feel so blessed to be here,with the people - both local and volunteers, and learning about how a charity program in Africa (an elsewhere) ought to be run.

The Settling-In Period

2006-07-08T05:32:00.000-07:00

I have now been in Uganda for almost one month. It has been a wonderful and intense experience. However, now that the novelty of 'living' in Africa has worn off, I am starting to get homesick for Dustin, family, and living in Seattle. When you are bustling around, learning the language, how to get from point A to B, where is 'safe' to eat, and that sunscreen really is important when you spend your day outside so close to the equator, missing the familiar crosses my brain right before I fall to sleep at night. Now that I have figured out some of this country and have some sort of rhythm to my life, I think about familiar things more frequently.

But struggling with the distance is also part of traveling - and another part that I actually relish. Something about distance making the heart grow fonder. the grass is always greener. or maybe it is just mostly about gaining a new perspective on those things treasured (and taken for granted). Traveling is definitely for me - I hope to do it for the remainder of my life. These types of long trips really help to remind me of the important things, learn new things about others (but mostly about myself), and reinforce how alike we all are (rather than dissimilar, granted there are differences, but they are usually not so great that they cannot be overcome with a bit of grace and good humor).

For those of you wondering what I have been up to the past few weeks...

My days start when the sun rises (around 6:30 - it sets at 6:30 as well, due to the proximity to the equator). I am trying to be consistent with a running plan, so I head out for 30 - 60 minutes for a run through the three local villages: Bujagali, Kyabirwa, and Buwenda. I have a few different routes that I take - all of which are through "neighborhoods." During the course of my run, I am constantly accompanied by two to fifteen children, between the ages of 4 and 10. They all think that it is quite funny that a Mzungu is RUNNING in SHORTS for FUN. Many of the neighborhoods have started to learn my name, so I am starting to get "Jambo Julianna." The kids love it when I stop to walk or stretch. The runs are full of lots of children giggling - it is a great way to wake-up. The roads are entirely uneven, so my ankles get a good workout. I am always balancing. While the kids run along side me until their turnoffs come for school (of which there are many!), the adults are all hard at work - and have been since around 5:30am. I run by people making maize flour, hoeing gardens, weeding, riding bikes with water jugs strapped all around, and men on their way to work - usually manual labor of some sort. I often pass the men that are working at the site as they walk to work. I am starting to feel like I am part of the community here - I always know at least three people on my runs (which requires a stop and chat) and many people know me and greet me. So, that is good!

Then it is to home for a quick change, splashing some water on my face, and off to the building site. On the way, I stop at a local chapatti (wheat flour mixed with some water and salt and then made like a pancake of sorts) and eggs, which I eat on the way. My walk to work is about five minutes - and I am also accompanied by children, all trying to hold my hand (many end up holding my wrist and arm). (FYI: Many of the children in the area have distended bellies, caused by a protein deficiency. They get enough calories - but not the right kind.)

Once I get to work (you can check it out at the Soft Power blog and website) I have some tea and FRESH pineapple and watermelon. Then it is to work - digging trenches, pick-axing, laying bricks, wheel barrowing rubbish, bricks, dirt, cement, laying cement, moving wet cement, unloading the truck. Lots of manual labor. The work day is from 9 - 4. We get a break for lunch - usually something local like posho (beat bananas), rice, ground nuts, cassava, potatoes, beans, and veggies. It is quite hot - there is little shade where I am usually working and from 10 - 2, everything slows quite a bit.

I have gotten to know quite a few of the local builders (Soft Power employs 80 locals builders in total - it is a great program!! I would love to talk with any of you who are interested - and especially if you are looking for a quality charity to support), and they are all very impressed that a mzungo (let alone a mzungo woman!) can work so hard and lift so much. I have to say that I am surprising myself!! I guess it is all pretty exciting to be working on such a big, cool project with locals. The work seems not as hard, somehow. The men have decided that I was born in the wrong country - I am really an African (Ugandan) woman (given how hard I work compared to other mzungu women, they say). They are all pretty sweet and have really been welcoming. In fact, today they all had their pictures taken individually with me. What a treat! And I have been invited to almost all of their homes, so I have a busy social schedule over the next two weeks. Lots of visits and meeting their families. I am excited!

Going to their homes, see where and how they live puts things in perspective. The most notable thing that I am realizing is that when I visit their homes - the first thing I think is how similar we are. They are proud of their homes, offer the guest a place to sit, want me to know where they are from, and share their food/drink with me. This really interesting because I thought I would first notice the "poverty" or "lacking" that these folks had - but I don't (at least not until later). I don't think that this is function of me but of them - they think of themselves as poor only relative to those outside their community. But, within their community, being poor does not seem to be as important - the wealth disparity is not as striking in the villages which makes it less important, somehow.

There have been many interesting conversations had with the builders - women's rights, children, religion and the nature of God, Iraq, Bush, America - in general, about salaries, cost of living, etc, health care and insurance, marriage and various gender roles (and why those are they way they are), and the nature of working/retirement. It has been riveting - always something new that one of us brings up, and we compare the cultural understandings of these things. Granted, I was the one who started this line of conversation, but they have all contributed (more and more as they have gotten to know me).

As a result of one conversation, two of the Muslim builders invited me to Mosque with them. How neat! I wore a long skirt, long-sleeved shirt, and a scarf over my head. The men sit in the front and women behind a wall - so I was isolated from my friends!! The mosque is a small mud hut with a mud floor and linoleum covering the floor. The men left me as I entered the women's area. Trying to stay kneeling for one hour on a bumpy floor is tough - my knees were sore for the entire following day! And, to top it off, a RAT ran through the women's area while the prayers were being said. All of us had the same reaction (again the commonalities across cultures!) - moving all around the room, trying to get out of the way. How funny! As a result of my visit, the builders named me Aisa (pronounced Aish-a) - my new Muslim/Ugandan name that they all call me now.

Aside from fun conversations with the locals, I am also getting to know many new and interesting mzungus. Lots of people come and volunteer for one day or two - and some stay for two - four weeks. There is quite a community, but I think that I may be more involved with the locals than the other volunteers. My nights are usually consumed with the World Cup, reading, eating and drinking with the other volunteers, and preparing for the next day.

All in all, it has been a GREAT experience here in Uganda. It is my favorite African country by far (although I have only visited four.). I have really enjoyed spending time with Ayuen (I see her at least every Saturday), the locals, and the travelers here. I am getting ready for Dut to join me here in a couple of weeks and then move on, hopefully to Sudan but maybe early to Togo, depending on the security situation in Sudan.

Until later.

Newest installment

2006-06-21T08:02:00.000-07:00

A few more happenings… Soon everything will seem a lot less new, so I will likely have less to report. In the meantime, however, here goes!

The last email update covered through Monday… But, as per usual with my experiences here, the last two and a half days have been fairly full of new things. (As an interesting tidbit… where I email from is called “The Source” Café. Most people think that this is for the “The Source” of the Nile. But no, it is for “the Source of life” – Jesus Christ. This place is run by, and hopping with, Latter Day Saints folks and plenty of other non-denominational people – almost all from the states – all on missions. It is a very interesting place to be! I can feel folks eyeing me – wondering if I need saving!)

On Monday, I did emails for six hours. The internet is slower than even dial-up. If that isn’t amazing… Then, I headed back to Nile River Explorers to do some laundry. Betty – the laundry lady – is a real sweetheart. I had her show me how to do laundry – by hand. Ladies here really do a much better job cleaning clothes than I do! So, there is no better time or place to learn. Betty was a kick – she thought it was so funny that a mzungu (white person) would want to learn how to wash clothes – and still pay her for her services! Anyway, she was quite taken with me (and I with her!), and we had quite a good laugh over the course of the evening. She charged 3000USh for two weeks worth of laundry – appx $2. Hand washing clothes is hard work. It is no wonder why people are in good shape! Everything takes such work to do – get water, have electricity, clean floors, wash clothes, make food… From that point on, she kinda’ took me under her wing. Every time she saw me Monday, Tuesday, and this morning, she came over to give me a hug and kiss… hold my hand… do motherly reminders (don’t forget to do… you should…).

That evening, the group of 30 high schoolers decided that it would be a good idea to get smashed after their chaperones went to bed. The problem was that I knew they were drunk – they were throwing up by my tent, talking about how drunk they were, and having lots of mini-dramas. Rather than deal with it that evening (I was sure a chaperone would wake-up!), I decided to try to sleep. Needless to say, I did not sleep well but turned the group into the lead chaperone in the morning. Wowsers – what a talking to those kids got! Most were sophomores and juniors… As my new friend Susan says – this means that they will get smarter about when and where they drink. Probably! But that is not a good reason to act illegally.

Tuesday brought the Nile. This was one of those experiences which is marked by continuous adrenaline rushes. We rafted down 30 km of the Nile (something like 15 miles?). There was no time like the present to experience this for three reasons:

(1) In two years, these rapids will be gone because they are building a dam,
(2) my friend Susan, a doctor, was going – always good to have medical care readily available, and
(3) how cool is to raft the head of the Nile and cruise the foot of the Nile on the same trip?

For those of you who think you have power over water or nature – try whitewater rafting here. I have rarely felt so small and at the behest of some other force than yesterday. We did something like 16 – 20 different rapids, ranging from grade 2 – 5. We did four grade 5 rapids (the highest
classification that anyone can raft down), something like six grade 4 rapids, and the rest were grades 2 and 3. The grade 5 rapids flipped the raft every time save the last one. It is fairly intense to be speeding down the Nile only to come upon an 8 – 10 foot “wave” or pile of water…

Our guide would say something like – “hard forward, hard forward, hold on and get down!” Just typing those words makes my heart speed up. Weird. The goal was to ride the rapid with everyone still in the boat… But that is a tough one when the raft flips entirely and everyone is dumped out and into the water. For those of you worried about safety (Dad!), here are some
factoids to calm the nerves:

(1) There were four safety kayaks waiting at the base of each rapid, trained to come into the rapid and/or spot us ASAP. Each kayak can hold two people, so all people could be rescued if need be.
(2) In addition to the safety kayak, there was also a safety raft.
(3) The most common injury are broken fingers – from people holding the raft incorrectly. No one has died rafting down the Nile.
(4) The most serious injury was a broken femur. Within 20 minutes of the break, the man was in helicopter being airlifted to Kampala, hooked up to IVs and being treated.
(5) All guides and safety personnel are highly trained in standard CPR/first aid, water rescue, white-water rescue…
(6) My guide grew up near the Nile. He spent his youth going down the river (swimming) and over the rapids, holding only 20-gallon containers (no helmets or life preservers, as we were required to wear). He is currently the #1 kayaker in the world on the Nile. (They just had an international competition here, and he won. He also ranks top 20 in the world – even had
a magazine (with him on the cover) to prove it!) So, he knows the river pretty well. And he has been guiding raft trips down the Nile for 10 years.

Needless to say, I was anxious about the safety of the Nile. But, after doing a bunch of talking and research, I felt VERY confident about the safety of the experience. And, if anything went wrong, there were plenty of folks and resources to help.

Rafting down the Nile is likely something that I do not need to do again. While I felt safe, prepared, and secure, being at the mercy of such a powerful force is humbling and frightening. It is something like “been there, done that, got the t-shirt” and very influenced by the experience.

That evening, I headed out with a bunch of Soft Power volunteers to “2 Friends Café” to watch the England Sweden World Cup game. Soccer dominates life here. Most of the Soft Power people are British, so it was fun to watch it with them. I was fairly tuckered after the day, so I headed home early. After checking about the safety of walking home alone and getting directions, I headed off on foot. Expecting streetlights but finding none, my mind quickly got the best of me. It is REALLY dark here. I could hardly see my feet, let alone the turns! So, after trying to walk and getting a little turned around, I made it back to 2 Friends. Luckily Bright, the
chef, was heading home and lives near me. He took me home and everything seemed quite a bit less threatening with him there. The mind is a powerful thing!

Today has been about email and getting ready to head to Bujagali tomorrow and start volunteering… I am really excited but feel pretty comfortable here in Jinja… It will be nice to have the SAME base for four weeks. But, all the same, Jinja is a great little place. Very small, easy going, and not too much traffic (save the boda bodas!). Bujagali is appx 6 km from town. So, it is not impossible to get back – just a bit harder. We had dinner at Bujagali last night (as part of the raft experience), and it is beautiful.

update (another long one)

2006-06-19T08:24:00.000-07:00

Hey there kiddies :-)

This is organized something like:
(1) Random thoughts
(2) Books/music/videos of interest
(3) Cast of Characters
(4) Trek

(1) Random Thoughts:

a. For the record, even though the DEET spray and glass cleaner are in the same type of bottle, DEET does not clean glasses very well. Just in case you were wondering!
b. One of the hardest scenes here thus far occurred in the Taxi Park in Kampala. As in lots of places everywhere, there are folks who are begging for some handouts. In most circumstances, I have sympathy but generally no problem not giving anything, given knowledge of service programs that are available. However, that is not the case in Kampala. There are children who line the street on the way to the taxi park. In my short walk of five minutes between taxis, I encountered 30 children, all in some state of illness and many seemingly near death. The youngest was barely one year old (maybe older, but hunger had stunted her growth?). She was sitting in a pile of oily mud, with a sarong draped over her (maybe for the heat? But by whom?). She barely had her eyes open – and there were flies crawling all around her eyes. She was sitting – barely. Her hands were barely outstretched – as if she had no energy left. She did not speak (again from hunger?)… And people just walked past… and so did I. I felt sick… It was awful. And she was not the only one – just the youngest. All seemed so close to death. And, there is not any good service organization available for these kids. For all I know, this little girl is now dead. And I just walked by. In fairness to me, what was one to do? Give her money? Clearly she could not defend herself against the other stronger kids who would likely steal the cash anyway… Buy her food for one meal? And prolong her suffering? Take her home with me? It is a very confusing issue – and I am not sure what the right response is… It has certainly stuck with me the past two weeks, however.

(2) Recommended books/music/reads by others to me:

a. Music: Julianna – she is a famous Ugandan singer! So, I am quite well known, I guess.
b. Books: Mother Tongue. Has anyone read it?
c. Movies: Lord of War with Nicolas Cage – M+D = you should watch it and let me know if it is worth watching upon my return!!

(3) Cast of Characters: there were four of us on the trek this past week… Shane, Chris, Susan, and me. To set the scene, here is a bit of info about them!

a. Shane: 37 years. River guide who has rafted rivers all around the world. He is quite a “guy’s guy.” Originally from New Zealand (a Kiwi), he has not returned home for 10 years. He currently has a girlfriend, named Helga, from Croatia. He was our guide/driver/team leader.
b. Randall/Randy/Wendy :-). 30 years old. Accountant from Canada (Toronto). Working in the UK and recently quit his job to figure out what he wanted to do with his life. Quite the party animal but thinking about settling down soon. He is taking an overland trek from NBO to South Africa for five weeks. Because the Ugandans have trouble with r’s at the beginning of words, often Randy sounded like “Wendy,” so we went with that. :)
c. Susan: 32 years old. This lady is quite the chica. She sort of reminds of Darcy – blond hair, blue eyes, and quite pretty. But intense as all get out! She is an expedition doctor who travels around the world on climbing treks (i.e. Everest, Andes, etc). She also travels on her own quite a lot – and climbed the Rwenzoris here in Uganda alone (with a guide, however).

(4) The Safari!!

a. Day 1: drive to Ruboni Community Camp. We started out at 745am on Tuesday. Shane and Wendy met me at NRE and off we went to Kampala. We first stopped at the Ugandan Wildlife Authority – quite a well run organization – to pick up our permits ($360 a pop!!). Heading into town, we stopped at the bank for Randy to get some cash. As it turned out, his card would not work and was charged an additional $50 to withdraw money… And then we got clamped (and almost towed) while waiting for him to sort that out… And the weird part was that we were parked just as illegally as everyone else, but we were the only white folks doing so. Given that the white folks have cash, or so it seemed, we were the ones clamped and the other cars scattered. The towing company was located as some unknown hotel, and Shane had to go find it to pay and get unclamped. My job was to wait with the car and make sure nothing got stolen! It was intense – and hot. But it worked out. We got out of Kampala (thank goodness!) and made a quick lunch stop at Fort Portal. We ended at Ruboni, in the foothills of the Rwenzoris, where we met up with Susan. She is an ER doc and regaled us with hilarious stories of ER-dom… The neat part about where we stayed that (and every night) is UCOTA – the Ugandan Tourist Board (but I don’t know what the acronym stands for). UCOTA has worked pretty hard to help local folks develop their tourist industry in accordance with “Western “ standards so as to develop sustainably and get lots of tourists in! It was great – very clean and nice. Affordable. And based in sustainable business practices. Maybe a former Peace Corps project? I spend a good deal of time talking to Patrick and Tinka – the chairperson and representative for the local UCOTA cooperative. The businesses employ local Ugandans – at our place, two women: Alice and Leonida. I spent a long time talking to Alice (who is my age) and Leonida as well Leonida’s daughter. Very fun night! Alice, Leonida, and I had a good number of laughs about how women (and in particular African women) seem to work considerably harder than men. What a great connection!
b. Day 2: Ruboni to Buhoma. Starting in Ruboni, we had a very nice breakfast of fresh fruit from the area. After breakfast, I stood out on the road and talked to the women as they passed – they were heading to the fields to tend their gardens and fields. They all wore skirts and carried various instruments on their heads. Some spook mediocre English and others spoke none – indicative of the remoteness of the village. We got in the car and crossed the Equator, heading into Queen Elizabeth Park. The road we took is the road the UN takes between the DRC and Uganda. As you know, the Eastern DRC is unstable, so the UN is busy there. Accordingly, we saw lots of UN vehicles coming and going. It was pretty interesting – and a little intimidating. The highlight of the afternoon was seeing the “famous” tree-climbing lions of Queen Elizabeth park. The story is that many lions climb trees, but these lions in this park do so significantly more than any other. We were very lucky to see them! We also saw an assortment of baboons, monkeys (vervet), and perhaps an elephant in the distance? Mostly, it was just beautiful African Savannah scenery… We stopped at a random mansion outside of the park for lunch – which was supposedly going to take five minutes to prepare. Apparently there are only two hours in an African day because 5 minutes meant 1 hour (so… 24 hours in one day = 120 minutes!! What a quick day!). It was funny…And just one of those things. We got into Buhoma and checked into another UCOTA establishment just inside the park gates. We spent the evening with our Nile Special beers, eating dinner and looking at pictures of the gorillas we were to see the following day.
c. Day 3: GORILLA TREK!!! The highlight of the week was upon us. We woke up at 600, had breakfast, and attended our briefing. They had a possibility of 24 trekkers (8 per group). However, there was only 20 of us, so (as we found out later), Shane, Randy, Susan, and I were assigned the “hard” group – all of the older and younger people were moved out of our group as our trek was more challenging. We were told about the gorillas, what to expect, and that the likelihood of seeing gorillas was 95%.

We then split up, got porters if we wanted (I chose to get one at 10000USh – we had done a bunch of talking to locals and UWA people about the porters… The schpeel is that these folks need to benefit from the tourists coming or they will use the forest area to benefit instead, which makes sense. However, with such a steep entry fee, I was wondering why the locals did not see more of it?? Anyway, there was little time to think of the money-trail and it was an easier choice to hire a porter and think more about it later! So, I had Medi – a 20 year old guy who is supporting his sister and mother. Quite a nice guy – and quite helpful!) Since our driver was going with us, we ended up riding with the guides, porters, and paramilitary folks in the back of a truck. Africans know how to overload!!! There were literally 25 of us in the back of the small pick-up truck. When we came to hills, half had to get out in order for us to go up! We could not go fast (GOOD) because of how heavy the truck was.

(We had the paramilitary folks with AK-47s – three to five per tracking group – because in the 1990s or maybe earlier? Some rebels had killed a group of tourists who ere tracking the gorillas. After that, the UWA got a bunch more rigid about safety and hence, our armed escorts. It felt a bit weird, but being so close to Rwanda and DRC, I guess it makes sense!)

We rode on a road that was built after Museveni came and trekked the same group of gorillas we were about to (Group R). When Museveni came, the trek to the gorillas lasted six hours – our trek ended up being about 2 hours in! Anyway, Museveni commissioned the road as a shortcut to the group.

We jumped out of the truck and started climbing… and climbing.. and climbing… Which is not easy at the equator with no trees to shade you and at elevation. But we toughed it out (well – Susan was in great shape, so no problem for her!). We walked through fields of bananas and corn, heading toward the park boundary and SHADE. The path was at times only wide enough to put one foot in front of the other – or else risk sliding down a steep embankment.

Once we made it to the forest boundary, we had about another 40 minutes of walking through the forest. Our guides used machetes to slice through the thick undergrowth. And whereas before we had TOO MUCH SUN, we then were surrounded by “waitawhiles” which are plants with thorns shaped like barbs. I had my fair share - and rather than backing up to pull them out of my skin so as not to hurt – I charged ahead and suffered the consequences! Oh well. A few scratches never hurt anyone, right?

And then, we were 200m from the gorillas! WOW. We were all excited and quiet. We left our walking sticks, bags, and stuff with the porters and trackers (who had tracked the gorillas in the morning) and forged ahead, cameras in tow. If possible, the undergrowth got thicker
– so thick that you just walked on it (probably 2 feet above the actual ground in some places).

We heard them before we saw them. You could find the group of 10 by where the leaves were rustling in the distance. The first we came upon were two females and the single, dominant male – the silverback. This guy weighs something like 800kg and is HUGE. It was a jaw-dropping, eye-popping sort of thing to be struggling through the undergrowth, hearing them, and then all at once be 9m from this HUGE animal. And he was just eating… And then moved to get some more leaves – he just uprooted a tree!!! CRAZY. He just sat there and watched us absentmindedly. The females did much the same… We stayed with them for one hour and thirty minutes, just absorbed in their calls, eating, and interactions. We were non-entities to them… There were two babies – one who made eye contact with me and came within two feet of me… stood up… and beat his chest with his hands and did his baby gorilla growl… And then one of his older siblings came and tackled him. Right in front of me – twice. Amazing. It felt like if you could be there for just a short while, you could become a gorilla – or at least you could understand each other… Which was mixed by the other feeling that these guys were so much more different from humans. It was weird to be smacked with such opposing feelings – either we could communicate through some sort of primal way or we never could. Really cool experience.

After that, we headed back to the porters and lunch in the forest, to the truck (again with now 28 of us!), and to our bandas to shower and relive the experience. Except…

Once we got to the bandas, showered, and dusk was approaching, another group (Group M) came up to the forest edge – at our banda to eat!!! We sat outside and watched them for three hours. Some were 100m and others were 20m away. We saw some females, juveniles, babies, and the silverback for the troop. What a neat deal! They left at 6 to go nest for the night, and we headed into town to watch the England World Cup game.

As it turned out, people all went to someone’s house to watch the game! We showed up at this family’s front door and we were graciously welcomed. As I had little interest in the game, I ended up spending three hours talking to Rittah, the niece of the family. At 16 and in high school, she was excited to practice her English. She took me all around their place – their fish pond, to see the pigs, piglets, dogs, to pick beans (like fava beans), to see eggplant, squash, and bananas. We then headed to her room and talked about school – she showed me her school books and we talked about her future. What a neat girl! I had a great time… And was so impressed with how friendly everyone was.

d. Day 4: Buhoma to Lake Mburu… We had a long day ahead of us – eight hours over HORRIBLE roads (although no more horrible than others that we had been on… but fairly tiring and dirty!). Driving through small villages who rarely see mzungus, kids would run after the van and yell “Hello” “You are welcome” “I am fine” “Please” or some assortment of random English they had learned in school. So completely endearing… And then the car overheated 2 hours from our destination. So, we stopped, I got out of the car (as I could be no help)… We were quite the attraction. In about 10 minutes we had literally 100 people (mostly kids on their lunch break) surrounding us from a distance of approximately 10 feet. Well, I thought, this is no good. We are just staring at each other… So, walked up to one child who was intently staring at me and started to talk to her… The kids all rushed around us! AMAZING. Surrounded by 50 kids, with me crouched down to be at their level, we basically stared and exchanged phrases – me in English and them in luganda (and their local dialect). Basically, no understanding whatsoever! So, I started singing “Row Row Row your boat,” which they thought was great. I ended up teaching it to them… And they all laughed… And then they sang me a couple of songs in luganda. GREAT. And then we stood there… Kids started to tell me their names and their ages. It is pretty powerful to communicate and understand one another. So, after 15 minutes of this, it went silent. Given their interest in me and desire to stay planted around me, I started to sing “Father Abraham had many sons” which was quite the hit. Kids are kids, eh? They all love to be silly and move their bodies in funny ways – and especially to see an adult MZUNGU do the same thing! Once I finished – and I was hot, sweaty, and covered with dust! – they started singing “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes.” So neat…
And then the car was fixed. We headed off – and not after a number of persistent cries for money and my watch, ring, cross, clothes, hat… And then the car broke again. Shane head to the nearest town to get some serious help and we again were surrounded by children – this time more
teenagers and they were carrying machetes and sugarcane. They certainly looked a bit more menacing – just starring at us… But I again struck up a conversation (the other two stayed in the car) and did not have as much luck but lots of cautious smiles and laughs were exchanged. The car ended up being really broke. We stayed in Mbarara town (off the itinerary) with plans to head to Lake Mburu the next day.
e. Day 5: Lake Mburu. With a taxi, we left Shane with our gear (with the plan to have the car fixed and for him to meet us down the road) and went to Lake Mburu National Park to go for our early morning game walk. What a neat thing to do! It is the only park that does not have many dangerous animals, save water buffalo, so tourists can do game walks with rangers (again with the AK-47s – this time for protection from the animals!). We saw impala, 15 different types of birds, warthog, hippos, zebras, élan, baboons, Reed bucks, water bucks, water buffalo, tope, mongooses, and a few more I cannot remember! The experience was remarkable because you could walk through the park, off the beaten trail to see the animals. The van ended up being really broken, so we had to stay an extra night, again with hopes of it being fixed by Sunday. We spent lunch and dinner at the restaurant near the lake, where we had MANY hippos right off
the porch. COOL!
f. Day 6: Lake Mburu to Jinja. We had another game walk in the morning, seeing many of the same animals but a different part of the park. More interesting was the subsequent conversation we had with our guide, Nicholas. He was quite intelligent and asked me all sorts of questions about the US – Bush, Cheney, Condi, Hillary, Gore, Kerry, and lots of other folks. He knew a lot about government, US policy, and we had a great conversation comparing the Ugandan, Canadian, and American governments and policies. Really interesting! We ended up leaving for Jinja at 430pm in a hired taxi – the van was still not fixed and in fact had to be towed from Mbarara back to Jinja. We finally arrived at almost midnight on Sunday and crashed…

So! There it is! Whew. I think that the next email will be a bit shorter, as I will be hanging out here more. The new plan looks something like…
(1) Today (Monday): figure out my life! Do laundry, email, etc…
(2) Tuesday: maybe go rafting down the Nile with Susan… or a bit more email… just settling
(3) Wednesday: either stay in Jinja or do some volunteering with Soft Power if I don’t go rafting OR if I go rafting, do email in Jinja
(4) Thursday: head to a small local village to meet some buddies who are doing sustainable agricultural education work. Spend the night there…
(5) Friday: come back from the village and get ready to head to Kampala on Saturday.
(6) Saturday: Kampala with Ayuen – the girls all want to see my laptop and have me teach them some songs.
(7) Sunday: Kampala with Ayuen – work out the cell phone (finally!) and maybe figure out a way for her to come stay with me in Jinja the following weekend.
(8) M – F of the next week: Soft Power and staying at Eden Rock at Bujagali Falls…

OK! Let me know what’s what in your lives… Love, me

Meanwhile, back in Aachen...

2006-06-12T15:00:00.000-07:00

Dustin's in for the long haul of mostly working until he heads off to meet Julianna in Africa in two months. From here on out most of the entries will probably be about Julianna's adventures in Africa, and you can all assume I'm plugging along here in Germany. This past week was probably one of my last trips before I head to join Julianna in Ghana -- on Thursday I headed out to Karlsruhe for two days to visit my advisor Mari who is on sabbadical there. It was a good visit, I got to meet people at the lab she's visiting, and had a great dinner with her family and a couple of the students she invited over to her place.

Friday was more meetings at the lab, but "most importantly" at the end of the day we headed to the city center to watch the opening World Cup game (Germany vs. Costa Rica) in a plaza where they had set up a big screen for watching the game. It was a lot of fun, and I understand more what all the excitement about World Cup soccer is all about. On Friday night I also made a spontaneous plan to go meet up with two friends from high school, Ralph Zeigler and Matt Thompson. I headed to Nuremberg on Saturday, they picked me up at the train station and we went back to Raplh's parents' house. It was great to see everyone there again (they used to live across the street from us in Seattle). We had fun catching up, and then went out to a festival in their town (Erlangen) that happens once a year for a week, a la Octoberfest, but in the forrest under a canopy of trees, rather than tents - it was really nice!

Sunday we headed into Nuremberg to watch more World Cup games, and this time went to a big screen they erected outside the stadium in Nuremberg where Mexico was playing Iran. People were all clad in their teams colors, and went crazy waving flags and yelling and running around when goals were scored - all in all - a great experience of how exciting European soccer can be. So, a good weekend seeing old friends and jumping into some classic European culture. From here on out you'll all have to depend on Julianna for the exciting adventures, I'm hunkering down for lots of work...

Africa Update -- Beware: Long Entry Ahead!

2006-06-12T14:59:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the Wild Wild West. Or at least that is what it feels like! The rules are somewhat ambiguous, the people are friendly – particularly once they “know” you, and the roads are dusty. I think that Uganda today is much like the West in the 1800s, sans pistols and standoffs! This email is not particularly organized – just a bunch of thoughts about my first (almost) week in Africa. OK – here goes…

(1) White flies. After it rains, these flies loose their wings and for whatever reason, they are coated in fat (hence the name white flies – they are white from the fat). The flies are thrown into a skillet and fry in their own fat. Apparently, kids stand on the roads after the rain collecting them and gobbling them up. Yuck!

(2) Nice People. Oh my goodness – I am so impressed with the people here (and Kenya – but mostly in Uganda). I had heard that this was the case – Ugandans are some of the nicest Africans around. However, I was skeptical. But, I am close to being a complete convert. People are INCREDIBLY friendly… For example – when I headed into to Kampala to find Ayuen for the first time, I was COMPLETELY lost in the taxi park (more later) and could not figure anything out. I found the police booth, and stopped to ask for some help. As soon as I stopped, they invited me to sit down. All of these business people from the area came and sat and helped the police figure out which taxi I was to take – literally 20 people all helping me. Then, one of the police officers took me to the cab and made sure the price was fair. Once in the taxi, one of the people (of 14) asked where I was going, which started a stream of conversation – all trying to help me locate Glory to Glory Primary school. I was dropped off directly in front of the school and felt so lucky to be in a country with so many very helpful people – I would have never found it otherwise. Another example – the place I am staying (Nile River Explorers) is like a university dorm/hostel/family. People – mostly tourists – are always ready with advice and help once you ask. It is so nice to be able to ask about a bajillion questions and be able to get really good information. Unbelievable – the most helpful and patient place. It is great. I am really glad that I chose it!

(3) Food. I am still taking it easy with the food – I have to try a local place. I am scared about getting the runs or something worse. But, after asking around, new tourists seem to do just fine – particularly when going to places where other tourists frequent. I am mostly eating at NRE, however. The food is good and cheap - $2 to $4 for a solid meal. The first night I got in, however, I ordered pizza and left it at the bar while I washed my hands only to return to it and find it COVERED in ants. I shook off the slices and ate it anyway! It is kind of like camping – you are dirty and so is your food… except here you are expected to wear skirts.

(4) I have had little problem sleeping. In Nairobi, I slept poorly because I was anxious about the bus. The first night in Jinja, I slept in my mosquito tent outside because they were booked solid. It was lovely! The NRE has a fenced in yard with tall bushes surrounding it. It was quite peaceful – and I was surrounded by tents of other people doing just like me. The second night it was SO HOT. SO HOT. SO HOT. Like, suffocatingly hot. I poured water on me just to try to stay cool… Last night was very nice because it rained and really cooled everything down. And, the NRE folks left the electricity on, so the fans were on all night long – YAY!

(5) Schedule update. As it turns out, the gorilla permit they had for me was for Thursday… but I was not going to get it until Tuesday night, which meant I could not leave until Wednesday. AND, the permit was for Nkuringo (sp?) which is harder to get to than Bwindi, although in the same National Park. Anyway, I ended up signing up for the safari (which was optional with the permit purchase). It is nice, however, to have all of the food and transport and lodging and fees covered and taken care of AND I get to see a couple of other areas of Uganda that I would have otherwise missed.

So, the updated schedule looks something like this:

a. Tuesday: leave NRE at 730. Go to Queen Elizabeth Park. Spend night there.
b. Wednesday: travel to Buhoma (same base camp as before, but this time instead of a 17km road, we take a different 35km road to another gate). Spend night in Buhoma.
c. Thursday: GORILLAS!
d. Friday: travel to Lake Mburo Park. Spend night there.
e. Saturday: do a morning game trek with a Park Ranger. Head back to Jinja. I am going to get off at Kampala to see Ayuen (we get into Kampala at around 2pm, so I will have a couple of hours with her and the girls – more later). I will then head back to NRE and spend the night there.
f. Sunday: Kampala: church with Ayuen at her school. I am bringing my laptop as they are all SO interested… the digital camera was quite a hit – more later. Night at NRE.
g. Monday: start volunteering with Soft Power. (Aside: met Georgie this morning and her husband, Chris. She is GREAT! Very cool, laid back and just a kick. As it turns out, her husband, Chris, is the person running the safari that I am going on!! Weird, huh? Met Chris this morning also – he is swell as well.) I am moving to Eden Rock at Bujagali Falls (appx 10km from Jinja – I think it is on the map on the softpower website?).

h. Tues – Thu volunteer at Bujagali. The word on the street is that at the campsite, they actually are the only place around that has wireless!! We will see. It could make calling easy…

i. Fri – head back to town and *hopefully* meet Ayuen in town (she will come from Kampala). She will spend Fri and Sat with me… Then we head back to Kampala together on Sunday for church.

j. The following week… Volunteering, etc. One of the days, I am going out to one of the villages to hang out with some volunteers who are based out of NRE with a group called SPW. They do ag education. Very cool.

(6) Clothes. Mom – the skirts have been GREAT. Thanks so much. They were fun in Europe – but here they are essential and practical. I have worn different ones each day and they are perfect.

(7) Ayuen. What a girl. She is perfect. The female version of Dut. It is weird how alike they are. Something about good parents + genetics = same sort of people, even though they grew up without each other. The first time I met her, it was a bit funny… I got a bit turned around in the taxi park (see above) and FINALLY made it to the school. Dut had said that his cousin would be looking for me, but I did not see him, so… I went ahead. I got to the school and talked to the director, Pastor Felix (quite a character and so friendly). He reported that Rebecca (Ayuen) had just been taken by her brother one hour before and was not coming back for a long time. I was absolutely perplexed and concerned about the potential of her being abducted from under my nose. After a prolonged series of give and takes, Felix called John Deng Mabil, Dut’s cousin. Deng and his “cousin” (like three times removed!) named Kuch (the person Felix misunderstood to be Ayuen’s brother) had picked her up to COME AND MEET ME AT THE TAXI PARK!!! So, after this was solved – and that was not easy, because everyone was fairly confused – they came back. Ayuen was completely endearing when I first met her. You know the way Dut gives hugs to people – especially those shorter than him? Ayuen does the same. And she hugged me like twenty times and kept saying “Julianna, you are here… Julianna… Julianna, you are here…” Incredible. And then there was Deng an Kuch to meet – and they were excited to talk to me as well. WOW. What a 20 minute experience. Well worth the long trip!!!!

We went to a local pub and all had something to drink. Ayuen was so striking in her desire to help me… She offered to carry my bag… cleaned my seat before I sat… tried to help me if she thought I might trip… I have never been so attended to. It was hard because I was trying to be with her, but the guys wanted to talk. And, as I found out later, Ayuen is MUCH more quiet – like hardly talks at all – when men are present. When they aren’t, she talks a whole lot more! Anyway – I was trying to balance her (and my!) desire to get to know each other with the guys talking. Deng and Kuch were very nice and would give Ayuen space to talk, but she just would not. Anyway… Made a plan to come back the next day (without the guys for the first part of the day).

Sunday (yesterday) was even more incredible because I got to see Ayuen a bit more in her own environment without the guys to “hinder” or whatever her. I arrived during the middle of the church service (the taxi took an extra hour), and I was ushered to the front. It is a Pentecostal church, so I had to go to the front and talk about if I was saved (I said yes – and decided the theological argument about what that means would best be saved for later – saying yes was just better, I think). The service lasted five hours. During the service, I experienced the watchful eyes of the adults and children – but more from the kids. In fact, two came up to me and touched me briefly and just started laughing… I made it clear that it was ok to explore, and one came and sat on my lap (the mom left her with me for the entire service!!). She rubbed my skin, nose, scratched at my freckles, inspected my toes and fingers, pushed on my veins in my wrist… All of which was closely observed by the other children – about 100 or so. After the service, I went back to Ayuen’s dorm where she sleeps with 30 other girls. All of the girls came in with us and climbed up on the bunks and just stared at me. Once I looked at them, they would giggle an avert their eyes. So, I pulled out the digital camera and that brought everyone out of their shells! What fun!

Then, it was time for lunch. I had a REI bar and water… After the kids finished eating, the staring started and one kid ran up in back of me and touched my hair – which started off a loud roar of giggles. I said it was ok – and took my ponytail out. They all rushed over and I had about 60 hands on my head and arms. Quite the laying on of hands, I think!! Ayuen was very concerned that I was bothered, which I was not. Anyway… we went back to the dorm and it was time for a nap. I slept on Ayuen’s bed with her – all the girls, however, did not want to sleep but wanted to talk about America… Did I know Shakira? Is it true that green people came on plane last year to America? Could I teach them some songs? They headmistress came in and quieted them… At which point, I chatted quietly with Ayuen about stuff. It was great.

Then, Deng came and met us and we headed back to the same bar. We chatted for a bit – and had some more curious children stare (that is normal – everyone STARES at me and always talks about the Mzungo… me – the white person). I walked Ayuen back to the school and talked to her about western culture. She was floored that I lived by myself before I was married… and did not understand where I bought meat if cows, chickens, and goats were not just in the street/yard/nearby, ready to be slaughtered. It should be fun to talk more about this and prepare her for Australia (where she will be moving in a few months, thanks to Dut)…

(8) Transport. Everyone rides around on the back of bikes and motorcycles – they call them boda-bodas. It is my favorite way to travel, particularly on a bike. It is so peaceful to amble along to your destination… I love it. A typical trip costs 500 Ush… About 30 cents. Boda bodas are EVERYWHERE. And everyone uses them. People are always shocked to see an Mzungu riding on one – white people usually ride in cars (their own or rented ones)… It is nice to turn heads. My first trip, however, I got ripped off! They said 5000 Ush – and it took two bikes (one for me and one for my bag), which resulted in 10000USh. Oh well. Everyone gets ripped off a few times, right? It was when I had just arrived off of the Akambe bus from Nairobi, so I knew nothing! Anyway, it is great.

The other way to get around between cities (i.e. from Kampala to Jinja) is via taxi. You catch them at a taxi park, which is CRAZY. I am going to spend a day just watching because I cannot figure out how they fit so many “taxis” (AKA matatus…) in one place. They are for 14 people. I accidentally got on an unregistered one on my way to Kampala yesterday. Not only did it take an extra hour, but instead of the legistlated 14 people, there were 22 people and one chicken in this little van. Unreal. Oh well – lesson learned. I need to catch the taxi IN the park – not NEAR it. To get from here to Kampala, it costs 2500 – 3000 USh (appx $2). Crazy, huh? (Another random observation – the cost of gas per liter is $1 (more than $3 per gallon).
(9) Bugs. There are so few bugs here – at least FAR fewer than I expected. I am curious to see what the bug situation is like on the safari…

(10) Weather. Hot, but surprisingly bearable. It is usually in the 70s, but I am usually inside for the day, so I have not used the sunscreen yet. But, I will when I start working outside, for sure!

(11) PhD idea: why do people repatriate and to extent do they do so? This way, I can deal with what I know best – Sudan and Sudanese refugees and do field work in Sudan with those who have returned. What do you all think?

(12) My favorite thing that I brought with me so far: female urine director. It makes going to the bathroom in the nastiest (but typical) places possible and even easy. Peeing like a man – what a joy!!

(13) The electricity really comes and goes in a weird way and unexpectedly. African time for sure.
(14) Dirt. Pretty much, some part of me is dirty all of the time. Combine the humidity and heat (=sweat) with the ever present red dust that permeates everything = always a bit red (from the dust). However, one adjusts and rethinks what “clean” means.

(15) Mosquitos. I have had only ONE bite. I may need some more deet, however!

FEW! That is a big update. There should be more after the safari. Much love to all. Have a great day!

Hello from Africa!

2006-06-12T14:33:00.000-07:00

The update:
(1) trip from Aachen to Amsterdam was tiring but not hard. The bag ended up weighing 27 - and the limit is 30 kilos. So, i must be getting weak, because it sure felt heavier! Other than that, nothing particularly exciting... I did have to unpack my ENTIRE carry-on backpack. The lolita lempicka perfume is in a "dagger" form... And it was packed in the bottom. So, that was a kick.

(2) plane ride. Uneventful. I sat next to someone that I did not like. Actually did not like him -- unreal because that has never happened to me ever on a plane. But he was so particular - i had the isle but he did not like that i had one of my carry-ons stored under the seat because it would get in his way when he wanted to leave, etc. What a pain. But that is ok. Read a new book -- am halfway through it now. Only slept 3 hours.

(3) NBO airport. Got the plane and headed to passport control and visa app. I was filling out my visa app, and she walked up to me and asked if i was here on holiday, to which i said yes. She then took me to a desk behind the main desk where i paid my $50 and got my visa. Weird and fast. But, heck, this is Africa where rules matter in different ways... I did not even finish my visa app. So much for needing two pics and all that jazz.

(4) Drive from airport to backpackers. It took an hour and was tiring because people here are CRAZY drivers. Especially interesting to pass places like Simba Manufacturers and Rafiki engines (characters from the Lion King). EVERYONE was walking to work, which was interesting to see. Streams of people walking. And some men stopping to relieve themselves along the way!

(5) Backpackers... I am staying in a little room off the main building. It is COLD here. Apparently, it is "winter" time. Checked in and got to sleep for four hours.

(6) Got up, exchanged $50 for 3500 Ksh (much better than any exchange rate at any airport! - essentially only cost me $3 to change the money, which is great. Took a taxi to get my bus ticket, which i was apparently overcharged for (oh well. that is what it is to be white and not know!) . I even asked in advance and the backpackers had my driver go in for me. But, i paid 2000Ksh for the ticket - $27 (appx). The guide book said it would $24, but the folks here seemed to think it should be 1000Ksh. Maybe if you are black/African!

(7) Came back with my taxi driver, Chris. V. interesting guy. Likely will buy some candleholders from him -- 300Ksh each and I thought I would get four. He is an industrious sort of dude, so we will see. And the holders seem to pack well, so that is good. And for $16, I figure that is good deal. They are made of resin - and they make the molds etc. He took me to where the produce them - he and his partner (Chris also owns a second car, used for a taxi, and he and his wife run a small food business out of their home.). So, that was neat.

(8) Am now back at the backpackers and am going to shower, maybe nap?, prepare for tomorrow, read, and relax. There is a bbq here tonight (for 300ksh), so i will eat here and get to bed early. I have to leave here at 6am to get to the bus station tomorrow at 630am. The bus leaves at 7am. I am really anxious about the long bus trip and getting car sick and whether i should take the drammamine or not. It does make me sleepy -- and i don't want to worry about my bag being stolen. but, i think that i will take it (the non-drowsy kind even makes me tired!) and put those wrist bands on and hope that my anxiety will keep me up (or at least wake me when the bus stops!).

OK - more tomorrow when I get to Uganda.

What's shakin' with D+J...

2006-06-05T16:10:00.000-07:00

Hey there everyone... Long time, no update, we know. Things have been a little slow and easy around here. This is what we have been doing the past three or so weeks...

(1) Toulouse
We were in Toulouse, France for one week. We planned on leaving on the 10am train on Monday, but like all good plans... We ended up having to take the night train to get in Tuesday morning -- really early and a bit cranky (more me than D!). Dustin headed straight to the ICASSP conference, and I went to bed. I was on antibiotics still with my Lyme Disease (which has thankfully kicked the bucket!), and they really drained me.

So, other than sleeping in the morning and afternoon, I hung out with Dustin and his buddies at some GREAT meals. I mean really good - surprisingly good. I usually hate French food, but in Toulouse it happened to be great.

Dustin presented a paper in poster format on Friday. He was amazing, per usual! It was pretty neat to get to see Dustin in action, doing his work in style.

(2) Aachen
We have gone out a few times with friends... But we have basically been just resting, working (Dustin), and packing/prepping (me).

(3) Paris
For those of you I have not told, I really despise Paris. I know, I know, how could one hate PARIS? The city of light, right? Of love, romance, and croissants? Well, I do... And have for a while... I have tried to like it every time I have been there, but my experiences there turn out badly. However, I am still willing to like it -- maybe someone who likes the city can show me its good graces?

Anyway, I had to make the three hour train trek to Paris to get our Togo visas. I called the Togo embassy in the states to check about this, and they said it would be entirely easy and take only an hour or two. Dustin and I searched and searched, but there was no finding the Togo Embassy in France's website. So, relying on the Dept of State website and the info from the US Togo embassy, I departed. Ready and willing to be in Paris for ONE day, but no more!

So, the long and the short of it was that I was wrong.

I got to the embassy with no problem. Once I was there however, one thing led to another... ending up with me meeting the Togo Ambassador to France. Unbelievable. I waited at the embassy for four hours in a strange lobby, met the Ambassador, and went home empty-handed. It was stressful and less than fun. But, I figured, this is good prep for Africa -- I am going to be on "Africa time."

So, five days later, with receipt for our passports in hand, I arrived BACK IN PARIS to finish the task. Apparently, I got there at the wrong time... So I sat and waited again. This time, rather than having to wait three more hours (as I was told by the embassy folks upon my second arrival), I got the visas in 10 minutes time. Weird.

Relieved to be done with my task, I went back to the train station ASAP to get on the next train outta Paris. But no, I could not get on the next train -- I had to wait three hours to get on a different train. I was willing to stand, sit in the "in-between" space of the cars -- anything to get out of the city. But rules, I guess, are important to those French people.

So, the waiting commenced. I headed to a cafe, thinking that if I could only get some food and find a bathroom, things would feel much better. Lo and behold, I went to the cafe toilet, and there was a squat toilet with no doors for both sexes. This is something that I can expect and be happy about in a place like Uganda, but Paris? Apparently the French are quite the fans of the squat toilet, but I am yet to be converted...

After waiting for the next train, I got back to Aachen. That evening was full of moving to a new place -- more dorm-room style than our old place.

Again - I am willing to be convinced of Paris and its great stuff... I think I just need to go with someone who really likes the city!!

(4) Up next...
Dustin is working through evals, oh joy of all joys. He is doing good work - but it sure does take a chunk of time. As many of you already know, Dustin received a fellowship from MIT!!! We had thought that if he received it, he would need to be in Boston. But, it is basically just some cash for him to be paid so that he can focus solely (we think) on his dissertation. So, that is pretty much awesome. We stay in Seattle, he focuses on his research, and all things are good in the world.

I am heading to Africa tomorrow! Unbelievable that my time here has passed so quickly. I will be emailing as I am able... But my tentative plan looks something like this (tentative because it is determined in large part on Dut's citizenship status - complicated and long story)...
(1) June 7 - 12: Travel plan = Aachen --> Amsterdam --> Nairobi, Kenya --> Kampala, Uganda --> Jinja, Uganda. In Jinja, I meet up with Dut's sister, Ayuen and chill.
(2) June 13 - 17: Go to Bwindi Impenetrable Forest in W. Uganda. I got one of 16 gorilla trekking permits for the country, so I will be doing that for one of the days. Other days are consumed by travel, hikes, and seeing the sites.
(3) June 18 - ??: I will be doing one of the following...
- volunteering with Soft Power Education, a non-profit refurbishing and building schools in Jinja,
- volunteering with an organization in Kenya (I have a few contacts, so we will see if the Jinja one does not work out),
- heading to Sudan (if Dut can get his citizenship and into Uganda by July 1), or
- heading early to Togo to spend additional time with Cate and Wayne (Dustin's folks).

So! There you have it. I will be sending updates to Dustin as I am able... Please keep the emails and conversations coming!

Next Chapter

2006-05-10T06:49:00.000-07:00

We are now in hunker-down mode. Dustin is BUSY preparing for his conference in Toulouse next week and the craziness that is evals. I am recouperating from whatever it is that I have and dealing with all of the antibiotics that I am on... We leave on Monday morning - Dustin for Toulouse and me for Paris. I am going to Paris to take care of the rest of our Africa visas and then will head down to Toulouse to meet up with Dustin for the week. We may spend the weekend at Taize, but who knows? Over and out.

The Mystery is solved, temporarily...

2006-05-09T06:52:00.000-07:00

So, here is the shocker... The doc here thinks that I have Lyme Disease, of all things. After the return of the bite and swelling, we thought it prudent to go to the doctor. So, after much help from a lab-friend, Arne, I headed downtown to my doctor's appointment. After a brief wait, the doc came in, took one glance at my bite, and said that he thought I had burreloise. Then, he asked a bunch of questions and had someone else come in and consult. They both agreed that I indeed had this "burreloise" given to me by "zeckenbissfieber." Neither knew how to translate this - but drew my blood and sent me away with a prescription for antibiotics. Another round of difficulty in translating arose at the pharmacist -- she was trying to describe drug interactions and I was trying to understand. It was a far clearer in Germany than when Dustin had medical issues in Zanzibar, but still the nuances were missing... And I still did not know what I had!

I headed to Dustin's office with a bunch of German words written in my notebook. After a bit of google-translate, we figured out that burreloise means Lyme Disease. Great. I have a follow-up appointment on Monday before we leave for France. In the meantime, I am pretty zonked and taking lots of meds. Hopefully, we have nipped this thing in the bud! Good thing that we have the internet...

Hasta la Vista, Budapest...

2006-05-07T07:00:00.000-07:00

Sunday -- our final day in Budapest... After our many marathon travel weekends this month, we were pretty low-key on our last day in Budapest (or should I say Pest, as that is where we were staying?). We started the day late -- at 11am after a restful morning and breakfast at the Hotel. We took the efficient metro from downtown to Moskva Ter (Moscow Square -- a major transit hub) to walk to Castle Hill.

The first site we happened upon was a bombed out church, presumably from WWII. It was quite an interesting site -- very few signs indicating what it was, how it was destroyed, and when, but churches are so clearly churches, you know? Here is a pic on the left...

I wanted to show Dustin some of the sites that Marianna had showed me on Thursday, so we walked through the streets, to St. Mathias Church and the Fishermen's Bastion (picture on left of the two of us taken from there), and to the castle. We stopped briefly at a cafe to have a poppy pastry and vanilla croissant (yum!) before walking down the hill and into the city.

Our next stop was the synagogue, which I had not yet seen the inside of but had planned on doing so... Dustin was pretty willing to do anything, so we walked there. As it so happened, we arrived just as an English tour was starting -- what luck! The synagogue is pretty ornate inside -- lots of geometric work everywhere. During the Nazi occupation, the synagogue was used as a horse stable. It was also located right in the Jewish ghetto of Budapest...

The ghetto was quite small and many people were packed in a very small space. When people died, they were buried adjacent to the synagogue. This may be the only synagogue anywhere which has a cemetery so close; in Jewish law, it is forbidden to have the cemetery located in such proximity to the synagogue. However, there was little choice for the ghetto inhabitants. Now, the cemetery is a quite courtyard place and is quite peaceful.

Around the synagogue and by the cemetery, the tree of remembrance is located. It is a striking exhibit. As I understand it, it is called the "Tree of Life." It has the names of Holocoust victims engraved on its leaves, and the black stone has a cutout that looks like the ten commandments, and represents the absent moral code of the perpetrators of the Holocoust.

We capped our experience with a final stop at our favorite gelato place and headed to the train station to take a night train from Budapest to Munich and then catch three more trains from Munich to Aachen. Along the way, a bite on my leg that I got in Salzburg reappeared and started to swell and itch... We decided that I should have it looked at once we got home to Aachen (and boy are we glad that we decided that when we did!)...

Dustin Arrives in Budapest

2006-05-06T07:18:00.000-07:00

Whew! After a bit of worrying about Dustin having similar (ahem) train problems, Dustin arrived before I did to pick him up. And, to top it off, Dustin's good friend from the dorms at UW was there to meet us as well. Brian (Dustin's friend) works in Budapest as a professional paint-baller and coach. I am not at all familiar with the Paint-Balling world, but Brian is quite the hot-ticket. His tournament was canceled, so we had the opportunity to hang out with Brian and his girlfriend (from Oregon!) Betty for the day... I was pretty pumped to see the ol' husband :).

We first headed to St. Stephen's Basilica. If anyone knows the difference between a Basilica and a Cathedral -- please email me! I am curious... Anyway, this is another religious site that was ignored, partially destroyed, and basically in ruins after the Nazis and Communists. With the help of the state government, individual contributors, and the Catholic Church, the Basilica has been restored. It is a beautiful building -- but the best part is the view from the top.

On our way to meet Betty at their place, Brian took us by the only remaining Communist statue left in the city. You cannot see it in this picture, but the statue is surrounded by a fence. Folks aren't too fond of recollections of the "great" Communist era, so all of the other statues were removed and placed at Statue park -- outside of the city. This one is left because it is on the UN historical monuments list!

We stopped in at Brian and Betty's place, had some refreshments and headed out on the town for some walking and site seeing. Good thing that we had B&B with us -- I had been walking on the "wrong" side of Dustin. When women walk on the left side of a man, it indicates that she is nothing better than say, his dog (because this is the side that people walk their dogs). Dustin and I had to work the rest of the weekend to remember to have me on his right side -- we don't want people to get the wrong idea!

After a bit of walking and some lunch we walked over to the Danube, the city's main attraction. Dustin, Brian, Betty, and I took a number of pictures of each other, but the one on the left is the best.

At about 3pm, I went back to the Hotel room for some much needed rest -- I had only had 14 hours of sleep from Tuesday through Friday nights, and I was REALLY tired. Dustin, Brian, and Betty went to the mall and took in some more sites.

We all went out to a fun dinner (thanks for the treat Brian!), and then to a "Cinco de Mayo" party -- on the 6th of May. Crazy, but true. There were a bunch of English-speaking folks at this party, so it was clear to whom it was marketed. But really, Cinco de Mayo on the 6th? Curious.

We headed home at 1am... While waiting for Dustin to check his email, I struck up a conversation with the night hotel guy who WENT TO BALLARD HIGH SCHOOL IN SEATTLE. Weird. He is Jewish and Hungarian -- so he had a lot to say about Israel, Sharon, Hungarian history, American foreign policy, and life in Seattle. We talked with him until 3am and learned a heck of a lot.

Hungary's Tough History

2006-05-05T07:35:00.000-07:00

After much discussion with the family I was staying with, I started out my day at Aquincum, located north of Budapest. I was graciously driven there by my professor -- it took over an hour and a half to get there. We, in Seattle, think that we have commute problems? The entire city of Budapest seems to be under road construction, resulting in massive back-ups and frustrations for people. Anyway, Aquincum was an ancient Roman town along the border regions with neighboring groups. These groups were far from peaceful... The town, while full of what seemed to be beautiful houses and a cool layout -- complete with lots of baths! -- also had an urgent need to protect itself. It was pretty interesting to walk the grounds, as there were very few people around. It let my imagination run a bit wild!

Given the plethora of rocks and sunny weather, there were lizards everywhere. Where I walked, they scattered. At first, it was a bit disconcerting, but then I got a bit caught up in trying to catch one, to no avail.

Next on the list: the Gallery and Spanish Exhibit. I am usually not one for museums or art galleries because the places feel too overwhelming. However, in short and concentrated bursts of time, I really do like looking at art. I took the train to Hosok Tere (Heroes Square) and checked out the works of El Greco, Velazquez, and Goya. It was interesting to see this collection, as I had seen some of the paintings before in Madrid. This collection was only the best of the best of their work (according to those who know such things). It was pretty neat to look really closely at the different paintings and imagine painting such a thing myself -- impossible!

Then it was out to the square for some photo ops... It is quite a massive space. Here are some pictures... (1) the main statue, (2) a close-up of the top of the statue, and (3) a close-up of one the statues ringing the square...

I walked down Andrassy Ut from Heroes Square to the City Center. There, I stopped and had some GREAT gelato. As it turned out, I had gelato there three times over the course of the weekend -- it was that good. However, as good as the gelato was, the waitstaff equaled it with grumpiness. Oh well. Such is the expectation of traveling in Europe -- the meaning of customer service is not even generally neutral but negative.

The sad highlight of the day, however, was the House of Terror. I knew very little about the Museum and had some time to kill. Little did I know that this would be such a troubling experience... The House of Terror is located on 60 Andrassy Ut. It was the headquarters of the Nazi and Communist regimes -- and where countless numbers of people were tortured and killed in the basement. The exhibit, while clearly trying to paint the picture that "Hungary would never had been like this if not for external influences," certainly shed light on a terribly sad history. Hungary was allied with Germany in WWI and, like Germany, faced terrible economic conditions in the inter-war period. At the start of WWII, it again allied itself with Germany in hopes of regaining the 2/3 of the country that was lost after WWI and the fall of the Austro-Hungarian empire.

Until March of 1944, the Nazis did not occupy Hungary. However, that soon came to an end when Nazi soldiers crossed the border and placed Hungarian Jews on trains to Auschwitz or sent them to the Budapest Ghetto. Almost all of the Jews living in the countryside perished in the death camps. Before the war, Hungary had the third largest Jewish population in Europe. After the war, those numbers were considerably lessened.

In August of 1944, the Communist troops began marching into Hungary. After serious and brutal fights between the Nazis and Communists (which the Nazis, obviously, lost), the Communist assumed control of Hungary for two generations. During the 1950s and 1960s, the Hungarian citizenry lived under tight control by a government willing to punish dissidents. This is the picture that many Americans were likely afraid of -- the Communist threat. I would have been afraid too -- especially after visiting the museum.

This museum really forced me to think about Hungarian history and what I think about communism and Marxism more generally. I had little knowledge about Hungarian history prior to this experience; I was struck by what a crummy situation war puts people and countries in (which I think that we all kinda' know, but it is really different to "know" it and to walk through a building where people died because of it). War can be really great for the people in control, but those at the bottom get the raw end of any stick. While the Russian/Soviet interpretation of Communism may not have been authentic or accurate Marxism, it still makes me think critically about those Marxist principles that I think are correct. The museum and the city also made me think about our (the US) policy on crimes against humanity, torture, Abu Gharib, Guantanamo, and being silent.

After this heavy thinking, I met up with my professor and talked briefly about my experience at the museum and asked him a bunch of questions about his experience of growing up in Hungary. We sat along the Danube River at a swanky cafe, taking about the pros and cons of Communist government and the effects of Hungarian history.

Tamas and I headed home after talking for almost three hours... After a fun and chatty dinner with his family, the three girls took me to a movie (in English). We saw TransAmerica -- quite good. I recommend that you see it. The most interesting thing about this theater -- which I was told is characteristic of Budapest -- is that there are collages on the walls of the various movies that have been shown and there is a bookstore, jewelry store, and candy stand in the lobby. It was a pretty random conglomeration of things and people -- quite a site, aside from the movie.

24 hours later…

2006-05-04T08:20:00.000-07:00

After getting on the RIGHT train and arriving in Vienna at 9am, I had to run to an internet cafe to email Dustin to email my professor to have him call his daughter who was to meet me at 915! Crazy, but true. All communication went through (thank goodness), and I headed to the train station. Of course, my connecting train to the one to Budapest was LATE, resulting in a minor panic that I may miss THIS Budapest train as well. However, all trains were late and I FINALLY arrived in Budapest after 24 HOURS of train travel. I was pooped, but ready to see the city.

Tamas' daughter Sylvia (spelled differently in Hungarian...) met me at the train station. We then took the metro to the tram to a bus and finally to her house. I felt like the end of the world was surely coming -- I was so bone-tired. I knew that if I did not keep going, I was going to fall asleep and not wake up for two days. And then all of the extra sightseeing time would be lost. So, I took a bath, had some lunch, and met the rest of the family. My prof, Tamas, was not due home until late that evening. I really enjoyed chatting with Sylvia and her mom Zsuzsa. To those of you whom this makes sense -- the family reminded me of a cross between the Trobergs and Hardwicks, so I felt right at home!

The oldest daughter, Marianna (nicknamed Matzo -- but again, spelled differently in Hungarian), took me into the city to see the sites of Castle Hill and the Danube. She is pictured here (on the left). The other daughter (Sylvia's twin) is named Chilla (again, spelling). I ended up not meeting her until that evening. Chilla is quite the ER fan -- it reminded me of "ER nights" that Sierra and I used to have on Thursday!

The first site was the post office at Moskva Ter... It looks like an old castle:

As we walked up to the castle, we passed a number of buildings which were in disrepair. When I asked Matzo, she explained that they were still damaged from WWII and were on the list to be fixed. Here is a picture of some of the damage from the bombs...

Being the good student that she is, Matzo wanted to show me her school. It is an old building -- apparently it is like the building described in Harry Potter? It is also a public school -- who wouldn't want to go to school in such a cool place?

We then walked up to Castle Hill, to St. Mathias Church and the Fishermen's Bastion, pictured below.

The view from the Bastion was GORGEOUS. Here is a picture of Parliament across the Danube... And a cityscape...

Finally, we made it to the castle. This is the entrance:

And then down to the Danube. If you recall, two weeks ago, the Danube was flooding. The water came up to just below the "P" on the sign (the Danube is just on the lower left of the picture). Pretty crazy.

After all of that -- it was to home, dinner, and to bed!

What time is it? And where am I?

2006-05-03T08:41:00.000-07:00

I left for my journey right on time, or so I thought. I misread the 24-hour clock that everyone uses here and actually left an hour earlier than I need to -- no wonder I was so rushed! While waiting for my next train at the Aachen main station, I set my clock a little ahead so as to be on time. As it turns out, I was turned around -- I set my clock a little late and I was late for my second and third trains and could not figure out why... Once the clock situation was rectified, I was on my way to Cologne.

I had a two hour layover in Cologne and checked out the Cathedral. It is rumored to be the largest in Europe, and I had my doubts before I went in. It is massive -- but that is about it, as far as I am concerned.

Well, all was going according to plan -- I made all of the rest of my train connections and was relaxing into my trip. I arrived in Munich and checked with the conductor, asking which car I should get on to head to Budapest. He said "one of the next cars." So, I got on the next car which had lights on (the others were dark because people were sleeping -- it was midnight). I got all settled, had my ticket checked, and got ready to take a really long nap. At 2:30 (roughly an hour after finally falling asleep), I was awoken by a conductor asking where I was going. "Budapest" I responded. He said that the train was going to CROATIA -- Zagreb, to be more precise. Given that I did not have a ticket to go to CROATIA, I was kindly asked to get off the train at the next stop, in some town I did not (and still do not) know. As it turns out, the train split in two at Salzburg, and I was on the wrong half!

Well, as luck would have it, a train heading to Vienna stopped by this small station (which is still a mysterious place to me -- maybe it was a dream?) and I hopped on board there. The problem was that I was to meet my professor's daughter in Budapest at 9am -- 5 hours from the point I got on the train. There was no way that I was going to make it there on time and my cell phone did not work. So, I was a bit panicked and did not sleep much the rest of the night/morning... But at least I was on a train heading in the right direction!

Upcoming Travel Plans!

2006-05-01T01:40:00.001-07:00

So, now that we are all caught up on our happenings the past week and a half, we are geared up for another trip :). On Wednesday, I head off via night train to Budapest and will stay on Thursday and Friday nights with a former professor of mine (Event History Analysis) and his family. They live in the suburbs and it sounds like they will be very hospitable hosts. Dustin stays in Aachen until Friday and then takes the overnight train and arrives in Budapest on Saturday morning. We then will stay the night with an old friend of Dustin's from college -- Brian Ravenel. So, more adventures to be had and things to be learned! The week following Budapest, it is off to France: Taize for the weekend, Paris, Cherbourg, Mt. St. Michelle, and Toulouse for me, and Taize and Toulouse for Dustin. We have yet to firm up any other plans for the remainder of May and beginning of June (before I leave for Africa)...

May Day

2006-04-30T01:39:00.000-07:00

After returning from Amsterdam, with plans of a day trip to the town Julianna's grandmother is from, we decided we had exhausted ourselves and needed a day of rest. That worked out for the most part, with a good night's sleep and a nap to boot! Plans changed a bit though when we got an invitation to go out that evening for some dinner and dancing. May 1st is labor day in Germany, and thus a holiday. The night before is then, of course, a night for partying and 'dancing in the month of May.'

So, we accepted the invitation and headed to the Pontstrasse for some dinner with a few people that work with Dustin. After the meal we changed locations, did some dancing and rang in the month of May. We turned in about 1:30AM, a bit early for our German friends, but then again they haven't sprinted through three European capitals in the last three weekends in true American style... so we definitely felt ready for more sleep!

Amsterdam, Queen's Day

2006-04-29T01:38:00.000-07:00

Our visit to Amsterdam brought many unexpected experiences. It is a city filled with all kinds of people, especially on this day -- when they celebrate the queen's birthday. It's hard to feel like we're not exaggerating, but it seems that there must have been over a million people roaming the streets and partying on boats in the canals on this festive day. In fact, a little research turned up that the attendance ranges from 500,000 to 2 million on Queen's Day. I'm sure that Claire would have liked the day, everyone was decked out in the brightest of orange (the color of the Dutch monarchy)!

As many people know, prostitution, marijuana, and mushrooms are all legal here - which means there are an abundance of sex and drug paraphernalia shops among the streets... not to mention the prostitutes who 'advertise' their services by dancing in the windows of their 'place of business.' We spent most of the day just walking around taking in the excitement of the day. As with Queen's Night in The Hague the night before, there were bands playing everywhere, crafts and food for sale, and no shortage of beer. In the midst of it all we also ran into a stage with a Christian praise band, singing 'Yes Lord, yes Lord, yes yes Lord' -- quite the juxtaposition with the rest of the events of the day.

Our other main activity for the day was visiting the hiding place of Anne Frank. The house is now a museum chronicling the story of the family and their experiences hiding from the Nazi occupiers. The exhibits were nicely done, we learned a lot, and appreciated being able to connect the book we read as kids to a real life place and greater context. By the time we finished in the museum we were pretty well pooped out, and headed for the train station. We'll leave you with a couple more pictures of the festivities!

The Hague

2006-04-28T01:38:00.000-07:00

This weekend brings us a trip to the Netherlands, and a visit to one of Julianna's friends from her summer at the Carter center. Erik and his girlfriend Olivia were having a birthday party on Friday night, and invited us to come -- so we headed out on the train. First, a little stupid language humor, we're not quite sure why the people who put this on the German train don't think it is a hammer...

Ok, back to our 'serious' blog :) In addition to it being Erik and Olivia's birthdays, the weekend was also a major national holiday for celebrating the queen's (named Juliana -- note the slight spelling difference) birthday. The occasion meant that in The Hague on Friday night was 'Queen's Night' which meant the street were filled with concert locations, small amusement parks, and lots of drinks for sale. It was fun to walk through the streets from the train station towards Erik's apartment and watch all the people enjoying themselves.

After navigating through the city to Erik's apartment, we were greeted by our gracious hosts - who even set aside a room for us to sleep in (we brought our sleeping bags to be on the floor). We arrived around 10PM, and many of their guests were already there. We spent the evening sampling Dutch beer, Julianna learned how to salsa from a gay Ecuadorian lawyer (he was quite the character with many interesting stories and ideas), and Dustin made some new friends. All in all, it was quite a full night (and lasted until 5am the following morning) - dancing, discussing the definition of genocide and the impact of international criminal courts, and watching people enjoy the evening.

The next morning we walked back to the train station, picked up a chocolate crossaint, and snapped a quick picture of a nice fountain near the city center.

Munich

2006-04-26T01:38:00.000-07:00

After two days of day-trips from Munich (to the Castles and Dachau), I had one afternoon in Munich. I decided to take the "Third Reich Tour" of Munich and cap the evening with a beer from a beer hall. The Third Reich Tour was too much -- after Dachau, I thought I wanted to have more information, but it turned out that my mind was full. We went around to a variety of sights in Munich and saw where Hitler formed the party and where it became the Nationalist Socialist Party -- in the event room of the popular Hofbrauhaus. Hofbrauhaus is where all tourists go to get an "authentic" beer hall experience. As you can imagine, I did not go there for my beer. Other than Hofbrauhaus, we went to the new seat of Bavarian government -- the old building pockmarked with holes from bombs with wings extending out of the sides of the building, encased in glass. This is supposed to show that the region recognizes it past but is now a true democracy with transparency (glass). The final site was Hitler's office in Munich when he came to power and the location of most of his large rallies.

I was slated to go on to Rothenburg, a small medieval village, the following day. However, after a draining day, I decided to return to Aachen and surprise Dustin! So, the following day, on Wednesday, I jumped on a train and came home...

Dachau

2006-04-25T01:38:00.000-07:00

Having been to the Holocaust Museum in D.C., I thought I could handle a trip to a concentration with a numb, academic interest. For those of you who have not been to the Holocaust Museum, I strongly recommend going. It is a challenging place -- filled with people's shoes, their hair, their belongings, and their stories. But what really got me while touring the Museum were the shoes... So many shoes piled up all along the floor. Such an ordinary thing - a pair of shoes. I guess it says something about you -- where you have been, what you are doing, and where you are going. That last part is the hardest -- the shoes are not going anywhere anymore. Their role now is to remind us all about what genocide means. I was (and am) still struck by the memory of my visit to the museum and why I thought a visit to a concentration camp could be any different is beyond me. How I thought I could "handle it" -- particularly alone -- is a mystery. But, I am glad that I went and I hope not to return...

Two particular quotes seem to apply here, both from Elie Weisel (a great author).

I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.

Not to transmit an experience is to betray it.

And so my journey to Dachau began... Having an experience transmitted and coming away anything but neutral. You first walk down the lane where the prisoners were brought. Now, it is a graveled walkway lined with trees and peaceful as a park. I can only imagine what people were thinking as they walked through here.

You then come to the gatehouse (not the original -- it has been reconstructed). Here is where three things were stripped of the prisoners: their pride, their possessions, and their identity. Hearing about these stories and seeing movies like Schindler's List should have prepared me but did not. It was surreal to be standing on the same earth that thousands of people stood and became less than human in the eyes of their captors.

Dachau was the first concentration camp -- it was used for training of the SS soldiers and was the model for all of the rest of the camps that were built. Dachau is also a town -- it was formerly an artist's colony, a cute little village away from the big-city life of Munich. The residents of Dachau were initially supportive of the camp being built there because the town was suffering from no jobs (as was the rest of Germany) and desired to have something to do -- even if it meant working at and building a prison for "political prisoners." People of the town denied knowing anything about what was going on at Dachau... Although it was not a "death" camp, plenty of people died there -- thousands and thousands. Their bodies were burnt in the crematorium. There are some Jewish prisoners from the camp who currently live in Dachau and used to give tours daily of the camp. A truly unsettling place....

The above picture is of the plaque, commemorating the liberators who came to the camp April 28. The soldiers tried to give all of these starving people food -- which resulted in the deaths of some because their bodies could not hold the food. Even after the camp was liberated, people had to remain at the camp because there was such a large typhus epidemic. The camp and inhabitants were quarantined for three months.

The next picture is the infamous "work will set you free."

On the left is the large gathering square where people had to stand for role call. Requirements were: to look downward at a 45 degree angle, hands at side (not in pockets), feet parallel to one another... At one point during the winter, people stood here for 17 hours straight. People died all around them. This place is like a cemetery.

I asked my guide if she ever had people come on the tour that did not believe the Holocaust had happened... She had not had that happen, but other guides have had Neo-Nazis come along. It would be hard to still believe that the Holocaust did not happen when faced with all of this evidence. Still, she said that people are not fazed.

This is the border for one of the barracks which stretched to the tree line in the distance. It was built to hold 200 people. At one point, it had 2000 people "living" in it. The second picture is of the "beds" in one of the reconstructed barracks.

The next picture is a reconstruction of the ditch, barbed wire fence, and electrified fence. Called "going to the wire," people who could not handle the camp anymore would make an effort to run across the grass climb out of the ditch (difficult when in good health -- imagine what these people's condition was) and then throw themselves on the barbed wire in hopes of being electrocuted or shot by the guards.

The hard part about this tour was that most of this was not a reconstruction but the actual building and place. People really died here. And there was a such a contrast to the light -- it was sunny, people were walking around freely, kids were on school tours giggling and talking about whatever was on their minds... The challenge was to remain focused on the enormity of what had happened here (death) and to allow visions of what was going on now (life).

Outside the gates was the Crematorium. People are not allowed to smoke there. I don't know why that was so striking -- no smoking allowed. I understand the power of the imagery of fire and burning, but smoking also seemed to be commonplace everywhere else. It was almost as if the burning of bodies and smoking a cigarette were equivalent, but they don't seem the same to me. Maybe it was the unsettled atmosphere that made the rule so striking...

The picture is of the old crematorium -- there was a new one built (but I did not take a picture of it) because the old one could not burn bodies quickly enough. My guide said that "crematorium" was almost too nice of a term -- she thought incinerator was more appropriate. Crematoriums are where individual people who have died have their wishes fulfilled and are returned to ashes... Their ashes are gathered in a single container and handled respectfully. Here, it was anything but. No handling of individuals, no respect... Just efficient ridding of people. Prisoners worked in the crematorium and thought it a good job -- they could stay warm.

Next to the Crematorium were the gas chambers. The jury is out on whether or not these were used. There are not records of people dying here. But, there were experiments done to find out how much gas was needed. The pellets of the gas -- Cyclon B -- were dropped in through the window (far right picture). Cyclon B was developed by a German Jew to take care of rats; the scientist later killed himself as he could not stand what had happened to his discovery. At Dachau, over 30,000 people died (registered). It is estimated that the number is far higher -- thousands of Russians were killed in firing squads, groups of people who were killed were not counted in various years, etc. The number of people who died here is likely closer to 60,000... Enormous - but, compare it to Auschwitz, which had four working gas chambers which held 2,500 people. Death by Cyclon B took 15 minutes. When working at full capacity, Auschwitz was responsible for far more deaths.

The final picture is of a statue by the crematorium and gas chambers. It is in a shaded alcove, surrounded by trees. Look closely -- it is of a prisoner, hands in pockets, eyes looking straight ahead, and feet planted in a strong posture. Defiance is the name of the statue.

It's a Small World After All...

2006-04-24T10:38:00.000-07:00

After leaving Dustin in Salzburg, I continued on via train to Munich. With no reservations, no map, but a destination (Wombat's Munich), I was ready for more adventure. I arrived in Munich at 10:30pm after riding the train with folks from Vancouver, Washington. It was really fun to talk to them. As it turned out, we had the same travel plans for the next day (Monday), so we planned on meeting up again.

Arrival in Munich was typical -- and finding Wombat's did not turn out to be quite so much of an adventure. I wandered out of the train station (complete with middle-of-the-night train station sort of people... the kind you are not interested in talking to) and down some of the streets around the station. I knew that Wombat's Munich was near the train station -- I just did not know in which direction :). So, after walking for about half an hour with my good karma leading the way, I found my new home for the next three nights. I checked in and went to the bar only to meet up with a slew of other Americans, most notably an American soldier on leave from Iraq who was traveling around Munich with three of his closest buddies from Illinois. We had a very interesting couple of conversations -- and they, like the folks from the train, were also heading to the same place as me the following day. What a small world!

I woke up in the morning ready for a trip to the castle that the Disneyland Castle was based on: Neuschwanstein (here and here) and its parent castle Hohenshwangau (here and here).

The scenery was gorgeous. I was swept away by it all... It reminded me of Bozeman, Montana, with the Alps in the background and the green fields all around. The train running through the countryside went past little valleys which had walking paths cutting through. Along the paths were benches here and there -- I had fun imagining going on walks in the afternoon and sitting at these benches, reading, thinking, and journaling. The houses all look like those in Leavenworth, WA, with their steeped roofs, whitewashed walls, and wooden shutters with cutouts. It reminded me of the story of Heidi (based in Switzerland, but what I imagined her house to be like). (The picture is actually from the castles, but you can get the idea of what the scenery and day was like...)

After arriving in Fussen (with my Vancouver friends), we took the bus 5 kilometers through town and countryside to the castles' ticket office. The only way to access the castles is by a guided tour, and the English tours leave only every so often. I was lucky -- I had arrived just in time for the start of the English tour of Hohenshwangau followed two hours later by Neuschwanstein.

** On a side note, things got a bit interesting when I went to the ATM to get cash for my trip. Dustin had just given me a new card, with a new PIN, but I was not aware of the change. Needless to say, I could get no money and had only enough to eat and go on the castle tours that day. I quickly went to the Internet station and used a precious euro to email Dustin in hopes that he would get the email in time for me to get some cash so that I could stay at the hostel another night... Otherwise, I would have to cut my trip short! I was anxiously hording money all day long. However, Dustin came through (per usual!) and I was spared having to return early.

Hohenshwangau was destroyed in the middle ages but rediscovered by Crown Prince Maximilian of Bavaria in the middle of the 1800s. He rebuilt it and it became a summer residence and hunting castle. Quite the place to stay while hunting! There, King Maximillian and his wife Marie had two sons: Ludwig and Otto. Otto was the older brother but was declared insane at a young age; Ludwig assumed the Kingship when his father died. As it turned out, during the completion of his castle, Neuschwanstein, Ludwig was also declared unfit to lead due to insanity. Maybe it was from all of the inbreeding?

Anyway, Hohenshwangau is a beautiful place. It was built around the theme of swans (Neuschwanstein also adopted this motif throughout the building). Here are some pics... First of Hohenshwangau and then of Hohenshwangau looking to Neuschwanstein...

After touring Hohenshwangua, I sat by the alpine like bordering the castle and had lunch. The next stop, Neuschwanstein, was a 45 minute climb straight uphill, and I needed my energy! Lunch was good and the walk turned out to be invigorating. The sun was out, there was a slight breeze, and there were lots of interesting people to watch. I was pretty grateful to get to the top, however! Neuschwanstein was built by Ludwig... He wanted to model the entire castle off of Wagner's operas. Each room that we saw had a theme related to Wagner -- the castle even had a "cave" room, inspired by a part of another Wagnerian opera. I know little about opera and even less about Wagner, but my recollection is that his operas were dramatic, haunting/gothic, and depressing... The castle was eerie -- I would not want to be there at night. The outside, however, is quite cheerful -- probably because I associate it with Disneyland. While we could not take pics of the inside, here are some pics of the view from the castle grounds and of the outside of the castle:

In the distance in back of me, there is a bridge over a waterfall (this pic was taken from the courtyard of Neu.)... below of me looking over that bridge down at the waterfall... and also of Neu from the bridge...

On the way back down from my hike, I met up briefly with American soldier and friends, but I wanted to get back to Munich before dark. So I bid them adios and continued along my way. That evening, I crashed in bed but ending up reading my book until 1am. Sometimes, a book is just too good to put down! (I have read more novels here than I have in the past two years. What a joy!)

Salzburg

2006-04-23T10:37:00.000-07:00

After eking out a few hours of sleep in our Vienna hostel, we got up to catch a train into Salzburg for the day. We both fell in love with the city right from the beginning with a great view of the Alps from the train station and then a beautiful walk along the river towards the city center.

Salzburg is a great old city, home to Mozart, one of the most intimidating castles in Europe (it was never defeated!), and of course, the Von Trapp family (Sound of Music). We started our tour with Rick Steve's guided walk through the city. It has a nice cathedral,

interesting old grave yard with a monastery hidden in the hillside above (picture from there), and streets with fun old shop signs...

complete with old fashioned door bells. You actually pull the wire to ring the bell on the floors above!

After finishing the walking tour (and a quick nap on a park bench) we checked out two Mozart museums. The first was his birth place, and was interesting, but a bit overdone by somebody that thought they had designed an artsy monument to Mozart... to us it came off more like a failed attempt at dramatic presentation. The second museum was in the flat that Mozart and his family lived in for most of their lives. They moved there after he started to become well known (at about age six!) and their living situation improved quite a bit). This museum was much more tasteful, more interesting, and more informative. We walked through the rooms of the house with an audio tour (with plenty of Mozart music), learning about his life and family. It was all quite nice.

After the Mozart museums we headed out for a hike up the hill to the Salzburg castle, Hohensalzburg. The day was coming to a close, so we didn't go inside any of the buildings - but we did get to go into the courtyard for free! From here we found some of the most beautiful vistas of our travels so far, and after stopping for a gelato we headed back out along the ridge for a nice stroll through the woods.

At the other end of the ridge we took an elevator down through a modern art museum, and headed into town for a bite to eat. We found a fun Italian place, with a very Italian owner/waiter, and had some great pizza and gnocchi. With our day coming to a close, we headed back out along the river to the train station to catch our respective trains onward. Dustin headed back to Aachen, and Julianna headed on to Bavaria.

Vienna

2006-04-22T10:37:00.000-07:00

After a difficult night's sleep, we arrived in Vienna (although late). We were a bit tired and hungry but excited to tour another great European Capital. We had to quickly revamp our full itinerary to make sure that there would be time to see the top-priority things. It was particularly interesting to arrive in Vienna and tour the city as my Grandma had not too many years ago. Before Dustin and I left for Austria, Grandma told me about the various places she had visited -- many of the same places we were also planning on visiting. So, it is (and was!) neat to have that special connection.

We quickly got on the metro and zipped into town, getting off at St. Stephen's Cathedral. We actually did not go in -- but did take a picture! Here I am scoping out the options for the day in in front of the cathedral...

Our first stop was the Lipizzaner Stallions of the Spanish Riding School. We were late -- we only got to watch their morning routine for 30 minutes before they closed up shop. It was long enough, however! Dustin's allergies went wild with the horses and the confined space. He was sneezing and wheezing for the rest of the morning and afternoon. The practice space is a little strange -- if you imagine a beautiful and ornate dancing hall with chandeliers, carved ceilings and walls, and classical music playing in the background, you get a feel for the setting. Rather than parquet floors, however, there is sawdust and horse manure. Young men are riding around on their special horses (doing, I am sure, very special things -- but I am afraid that I don't know enough about horses to know just how special!). It was just as interesting to take in the atmosphere as it was to watch the horses prancing about. Below is a quick video of the horses...

After a quick stop at the horses, we went on to the Hofburg Palace, Treasury, and Silver Collection. The last Austrian Royal family lived at the Hofburg palace during most of the year and summered at the Schonbrunn Palace. The tour started with the Silver collections... I have never seen so much silver and gold eating utensils, candle stick holders, chandeliers (for candles); crystal vases, goblets, and glasses; and china in maybe 100 different patterns -- all complete sets. These were on display in a dizzying array of rooms. I got lost in all of the flatware -- literally. There were too many rooms and too many objects that looked similar. So much extravagance... Queen Marie Antoinette was an Austrian princess in this family -- you see where she got the "let them eat cake" attitude -- it would be hard to imagine anybody so poor as to have only one set of anything, let alone none at all. I was marginally disgusted with the over-the-topness of it all, but I can only imagine what is in the White House's own sliver/crystal/china treasury. Anyway...

Next were the imperial apartments. The Hofburg palace is overburdensomely large because no new king/queen would live in the apartments of the former ruler. So, more building had to commence. The Hofburg Palace is HUGE. I cannot imagine being a servant back in the day. It was typical for the Palace to feed 3,000 people each day -- that is how many people it took to keep things running. We only saw the rooms of the last Emperor and his family: Emperor Franz Josef. His rooms were "sparse" - particularly as compared to the rest of the rooms. His wife, Sissy (Elisabeth "Sis(s)i" von Wittelsbach) was a crazy lady. She was originally from Germany (Bavaria). People talk about her as the 1900s version of Princess Di. She was a tragic character -- unhappy to be married (at 16 or some young age) to Franz Joseph (who supposedly adored her). She worked out incessantly, ate rarely, was depressed and hated the public and court life, and was assassinated. She now has a sort of cultish status amongst people -- mostly because she was such a dramatic narcissist (as many commentators have labeled her). She also wrote a number of sad poems and stories about her life, adding to her status. Apparently, a number of movies have been made about her -- I must say that learning about her piqued my curiosity. I am going to read a bit more about her...

The final stop at the Palace was the Treasury. This is where the crown jewels, sacred objects, and items of great import are kept and put on display. It was another bout of "oh my goodness" -- lots of gems, jewels, intricately woven and sewn garments, and the ever important relics. In fact, we saw (supposedly) one of the nails that Christ was hung on the cross from and a piece of wood from the actual cross complete with nail marks. Regardless of whether or not they are actually those items or not, I was moved. If not the real thing, than a really old thing -- and probably somewhat similar to what Christ would have encountered.

Before leaving the city center, we looked around the palace grounds a short bit. Here are a couple of pictures... The first one is me with some of the Palace gardens in back of me. The second one is of Dustin -- on the left side of the picture are some original Roman ruins.

From Hofburg, we took the metro (again, one cannot help but be impressed with the mass transit here in Europe. If we are so worried about gas prices, maybe we should stop driving so much and instead develop good mass transit?) to Schonbrunn Palace. This was my favorite stop of the day. The Palace was beautiful, the tour (and audioguide) were informative and interesting, and the setting was picturesque. If planning a trip to Vienna and only wanting to make one palace tour, I would recommend the Schonbrunn way over the Hofburg.

The Schobrunn Palace was basically a repeat of the Hofburg, just better. The best part was the gardens, located in the back of the palace and spanning a huge number of acres. There were little paths everywhere, people strolling about, getting their running in, talking to one another on benches -- it was a perfect park setting... save, of course, the huge palaces bookending the park. It was fun just to roam about and watch people.

Here are some pics... the first is Schonbrunn from the front. Next are a couple of views from the back of the palace (the first is with Dustin and the second is from the top of the hill in back of the palace). The next couple of pictures are of the gardens...

After a full day of touring about Palaces and Gardens, we had three more stops to make: dinner, the Vienna Opera, and the Sacher Resturant. For dinner, we used Rick Steves as our guide and went to a PCC on steroids. For those of you not familiar with PCC, it is a natural food market where you can buy really good-for-you and good-tasting food from a deli. Well, we were pretty hungry and loaded our plates (they sell the food here by the plate) as full as they would go with veggies and salads... Needless to say, our eyes were bigger than our stomachs, and we could not finish everything. With me almost asleep in my chair and both of us plum exhausted, we decided to go to the opera where you have to stand for three hours... Another one of our bright ideas!

The opera house was amazing. We got there an hour early and got tickets for 3 euros each... It was pretty fun to watch people stream into this very beautiful building wearing their finest. We were not in top form -- no showers, walking all day long, and carrying our bags left us a little worse for wear. We didn't care - much. The opera started, and it was quite a funny one. But no more than half an hour into it and I was almost asleep again. So, we made a graceful exit (heck - for three euros, we more than got our money's worth) and headed across the street to the Sacher Hotel. Here are some pics of the opera... the first is looking from the stage to the seating areas. I am in the orange shirt leaning over the balcony on the far left. The second is of Dustin and me looking out and down to the stage (which I don't think is visible).

On to the final stop before bed... the Sacher Hotel, home of the world-famous Sacher Torte. We each had a glass of wine and split the Sacher dessert tray for two. What a treat! Sacher Torte was created in the 1800s and is a dry chocolate cake. I had heard of it occasionally and am glad that I got the chance to partake of the world-famous treat. It was a bit dry but completely rectified with a (large) dollop of whip cream.

After our full day of traveling and little sleep the night before (on the train), we made it to Wombat's Vienna, our youth hostel for the night. It is a youth hostel -- complete with its own bar. So, as you can imagine, our desired night of peaceful sleep was anything but that...

Cat in the track

2006-04-21T10:36:00.000-07:00

To quote Dr. Seuss:

"Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple"

Likewise sometimes the travel seems complicated but arriving is simple!

So was the case for our trip to Austria. After we mapped out a typically tight travel schedule that had us traveling from Aachen to Mannhiem to catch a night train to Vienna... we ended up sitting on tracks somewhere between Cologne and Mannheim for almost two hours without moving an inch. Never mind that they didn't seem to understand that we had a transfer to make and had already booked our sleeping arrangements on the overnight train to Vienna! After about an hour of going nowhere we finally found out from a conductor that the police were investigating some accident on the tracks ahead, and we would just have to wait until they cleared the way. When we asked about what we could do about missing our train, the answer was to catch one in the morning. Any suggestions about a place to stay, given that we were going to arrive in an unknown town after 1AM in the morning? The response was a shrug, I guess it wasn't a good night for the train employees either :).

Some time later the train finally started up, and we were trying to figure out what to do. Here enters our hero, Tom Rigg, who got a frantic call from us on our cell phone (with waning battery) about our delayed train, missed connection, and soon to be late night arrival in a strange city with nowhere to stay. Ten minutes later we called back and he had found a Ramada less then 200 yards from the train station, what a guy!

When we did finally arrive in the station, we wandered over to check out when the next train would be in the morning... only to find notice on the main board that the train to Vienna was also severely delayed, and would be arriving in ten minutes! Needless to say, we were quite thrilled that we would be able to get into bed in our reserved spots... and arrive in Vienna by morning -- something we were sure would have been impossible only a few minutes earlier. You can see the time (almost 1:30AM), the sign for our delayed train, and Julianna showing how tired we were!

Filled with relief, we headed back to the platform and waited for our train to arrive, stumbled into our beds (trying to not wake the others we shared the compartment with), and quickly fell asleep after quite the experience. Luckily we didn't need the hotel Tom found, but felt pretty good about the advantages of modern technology these days (cell phone call from Germany to Seattle, hotel reservation in Germany over the Internet from Seattle, two relieved people in Germany!)

The next morning we found out the train we eventually caught (headed to Vienna) had hit a cat, and the police had to be called out to investigate and be sure it wasn't a person or something else. The accident caused all the trains behind it to stand still (including the one we were on), resulting in quite a mess for all the trains involved. We got off the train, 'somewhat' well rested, and headed out for a day in Vienna!

Some pictures of home and the office

2006-04-20T04:47:00.000-07:00

Good afternoon. On my way to meet Dustin this afternoon, I took some pictures of home and the way to Dustin's office. Hope that this gives some ideas about where we live!

(1) Picture from our balcony, looking out over the city.

(2) Sitting area in our apartment... to the right (on the picture) is a wall of windows that open onto the balcony.

(3) In back of the sitting area is our kitchen! The kitchen came furnished with silverware and plates for two.

(4) Our "office"... directly adjacent to the sitting area and kitchen. Again, the windows (on the left of this picture) open onto the balcony. The door leads down the hallway to the bathrooms (one for the toilet and one for the shower) and our bedroom.

(5) The view from our front door... Looking down the hallway into the office/sitting area/kitchen (and eventually balcony).

(6) Our bathroom :).

(7) The view into our bedroom from the front door.

(8) Our "master" bathroom (sideways!)...

(9) The view outside our front door. We walk down steps (not pictured) as we are on the second floor.

(10) Our complex. We live up the stairs and the down the walkway to the left.

(11) This is the road we walk on to get to Dustin's office. The walk is about five minutes from our place. The building in the distance with the yellowish box on top is the lab...

(12) The entrance to Dustin's building (note the yellow box on the upper right of the picture. I am not sure why it is there or what function it serves!).

(13) Dustin, sitting as his desk.

Back home again, in (Indiana) Aachen...

2006-04-18T09:24:00.000-07:00

We are now back home again after quite a busy number of days. Having developed quite a cough, I am staying home for the week rather than continuing on to Munich as planned. The next few days should be nice to lay low, do laundry, and clean! We plan to go to Vienna and Salzburg this weekend (and maybe a side trip to Munich and the Romantic Road for me).

Back to business as usual, we will be lunching together, eating frozen pizza for dinner, going on runs in the morning, and planning our next adventure! Until the next post...

Easter Monday

2006-04-17T09:20:00.000-07:00

Apparently in the Czech Republic Monday is a bigger day for celebrating Easter than Sunday is. There are church services, and everyone has the day off (it's also similar in Germany). The day would prove to initiate us to some particularily unique Easter traditions. As Julianna mentioned earlier, very few Czechs are religious, but that doesn't inhibit their Easter celebration. I suppose these celebrations predate even the existence of Easter (difficult to get your head around on an 'American' time scale of history).

The centerpiece of the tradition is the whip of braided willow branches you see Dustin and Jachym holding below. The main idea is that the men should carry these whips around and give all the women they know a swift smack on the bottom, sometimes while reciting a traditional poem. This supposedly aides the fertility of the women, although it seems mostly like a good chance for the men to have a little fun in the name of 'helping' the women.

I was a bit timid in my participation given that I didn't know any of the women, but Julianna will attest to the strength with which the whips are used (still has a slightly painful reminder of it when she sits). The 'conclusion' of the ritual brings painted eggs from the women, and the men each receive one for the great favor they have bestowed :). The morning is basically a series of visits to different family's homes. Men travel in groups, trying to 'help out' as many women as possible. Each home also has an assortment of tasty traditional treats, not to mention the healthy serving of hard liquor that is furnished. This last portion of the tradition also provided an additional experience of the culture. It seems in addition to the whipping, Easter is considered a time to get very drunk. At each home I was offered quite a large serving of strong (80-120 proof) liquor. At each place I was told about how it was a traditional Czech style liquor, or made from apples in the family orchard, or ...

Needless to say, after visiting four homes and receiving more than a couple strong drinks at each, I was fully experiencing the tradition, and relieved to hear that by noon we were finished. The tradition has a built in finale, because the women are allowed to retaliate with water splashing if men try to use their whips after 12:00.

All of the families that we visited were very gracious, and each had a great selection of interesting food to try. Most of the young people spoke conversational English, while the older generation didn't seem to speak much English. That didn't stop them from offering food though, or me from accepting and using my limited Czech (deekway vom == thank you). One of Jachym's friends drove us around (I found out that it was a good way to avoid having to accept the strong liquor from everyone -- I think that may be another way for women to retaliate for the whipping... force lots of alcohol on the men). It was interesting to see an assortment of different Czech homes, and wonderful to meet so many kind families and watch them enjoy their traditions. Julianna may have a bit to add here about her conversations with some of them.

Following the noon cutoff, we moved on to find some lunch (at a local pub). The next hour mostly consisted of trying to recover from the drinking, and avoid the thought of being sick. Some good Czech food seemed to do the job, and we left around 2:00 for a walk around the town. It's a great town, with a still intact city wall, many older buildings, nice river, and a church (where we again climbed the tower). You can see some of the vistas below, as well as Jachym and Julianna at the city gate.

Jachym, our Czech Tour Guide

2006-04-16T08:56:00.000-07:00

Sunday came too fast... Having felt like we barely fell asleep, we awoke to a bright and clear day. We had to get up and moving to meet Dustin's friend (whom he met at the summer conference he attended last summer) at 9:30am. Jachym proved to be a fun Czech guide!

We spent the first half of the day roaming around the Castle and Cathedral. On Sunday (Easter), we tried to attend services at the National Cathedral, but to no avail. Oh well. Dustin and I sang some Easter songs (most notably Jesus Christ is Risen Today) and made light of a slightly sad situation (no family and no Easter service on Easter :(...). On a side note, we learned that Czechs tend not to be religious... Religion has been the rationale behind some pretty brutal wars (most importantly, I think, the Thirty Years War, fought between Catholics and Protestants). With a sad history of religious intolerance combined with a Communist legacy (which was not outwardly opposed to religious groups or people -- they, the state, still apparently paid priests/pastor salaries and for the upkeep of the churches... However, people who were religious and needed something from the state were not granted their wishes as quickly and those who worked at/for religious institutions were among the worst paid, leading to a stigmatized existence) led to a small percentage of the country being religious and the rest being professed Atheists. Additionally interesting because of the Easter holiday and "pagan" celebrations, which occur on Easter Monday -- more on that later.

With Jachym, we stopped by where Franz Kafka did some of his writing...

spent a good deal of time in the Castle gardens...

and along the Charles Bridge (made most recently famous in Mission Impossible)...

and to the Infant Jesus of Prague, which I had never heard about. Apparently, it is quite famous. Links can be found here and here.

We then took the bus north to Louny, where Jachym is from, to be in his town for EASTER MONDAY! The bus ride was uneventful... But that evening, we had dinner in the restuarant and dance club (what is it with dance clubs following us wherever we try to sleep?) attached to our hotel -- Hotel Louny. I had ice cream :) for dinner -- Dustin had a kind of fried pork. (Everything that is a specialty of Czech Republic, I think, is fried. That is, of course, except for the beer. It rather reminds me of England.) We had a great time that evening. We danced with a bunch of middle-aged Czech folks singing English songs by all sorts of bands while not speaking much English themselves. All of this singing, dancing, and revelry occurred underneath a 16th century cathedral. Weird.

The neatest thing about the evening was seeing the Czech people have fun. Most of the time, unless you talk to someone, people do not smile -- at all. I know that I am generally a smiley sort of person, but to literally not have one person smile at you, even when you smile at them, gives the impression of coolness... However, that cold exterior is not so thick, as we discovered that night. Side note -- many English/American songs that were popular before 1989 were translated into Czech and words were changed. The melody, however, remained. It was part of the Communist Government's way of allowing people to here the music without really hearing it -- interesting, huh?

18 Hours

2006-04-15T08:27:00.000-07:00

After the crazy day touring Prague, we opted for what we thought was going to be a much more relaxing journey... and, for the most part, it was. Having slept for almost 12 (interrupted) hours, we left Hotel Kacerov for Cesky Krumlov. Cesky Krumlov is often described as a mini-Prague. Now experienced Metro travelers (heck, we did it once, right?), we headed for the train station. Nobody at the (ugly) train station spoke English, so through signs and sounds, we finally figured out when and from where our train for Cesky Krumlov departed. As it turned out, we had very cool compartment mates: (1) an older woman, dressed up to go home for a visit with her grandchildren (or so I deduced), (2) a young, hippie lady with an ipod and laptop, jamming away (much like last night), (3) a woman closer to my age with a little Corky-dog (miniature schnauzer) who was as sweet as her dog (who took a great liking to me and to him), and (4) and (5) two young guys (both 25) who were young professionals on a day trip to another small village. The two young guys both spoke very good English, and one worked for the state transportation board. They were very informative about the area, the transportation situation in Czech Republic and in translating for us.

We changed trains to a small train (similar to the one we took to Bacharach in Germany on Thursday). The countryside reminded me so much of Colville. Similar in types of plants and trees, slightly rolling hills and small mountains, and temperate weather. The difference is that the towns all were quite old and linked by train.

Upon arrival in Cesky Krumlov, we walked (we now walk a lot) to the town. This town, along with the newly included Bacharach, is another favorite small town. It too has the cobblestone streets, the castle, and the cathedral (essential components)... It just has a good vibe. Our first stop was at a highly recommended pizza joint where I had one of the best Quattro Formaggio pizzas maybe ever. We had Eggenbrach (or something like that) -- the local beer. After our afternoon break, we headed through town and ended up buying "Bohemian Crystal" - a set of 12 water glasses. We were really excited to find them -- they seem to be good quality (how would we know anyway? We are convinced, however!) and are quite pretty. Of course, buying them that early on meant that we had to carry them throughout the rest of our tour and yes, up another flight of stairs to the top of a tower spire.

Having wandered amongst the gardens, the castle, and the tower, we headed back to town. We did not make it too far before Dustin bought me some garnet earrings -- which are perfect and match a necklace he gave me long ago. We stopped to get some ice cream (heck, we deserve it after the walking).

After the ice cream, we decided to catch an earlier train to the home of Budweiser Beer, Cesky Budejovice. Outside of Cw=esky Kruvlov, however, we realized that we did not know how to get back to the train station... Nobody spoke English (it is too far removed from Prague), and we spoke no Czech. We vaguely remembered where the station was but were a little turned around... Looking through the tour book, we found the Czech word for train - vlak (which, note, looks and sounds nothing like train). We found a girl with her father (?) and motioned that we wanted to know where the "vlak" was. Given no common language, the girl walked us to the train station -- no small feet as it was a 20 minute walk uphill. We tried to communicate with her, but to no avail. She would not take a gift of any kind for her service and just skipped away as soon as she was sure we would not be lost... She sort of reminded me of a softer Maggie Porter, for those of you who know her.

So, we made the train and the subsequent stop at Cesky Budejovice. The beer was good -- in the beer hall of the Budweiser (no, not the same as in the States) brewing plant. Apparently the American Budweiser company used the name Budweiser initially because it was synonomous with good beer -- and we found that to be true. Dustin had a typical Czech meal -- two kinds of dumplings, ham, duck, pork, sauerkraut, and beer. I had a salad :). There was a lively Wayne-Hillard-style band (ala Sacramento Jazz Festival)... The video is here:

We made it back to our favorite Hotel, Hotel Kacerov after taking the last Metro for the day at 12:10 AM. By the time we went to bed, it was 1am, 18 hours of traveling had past, and the club was hopping. Rachel and Brian -- as a sidenote -- we really felt what it was like to live in Chicago above a bar!!

30 miles

2006-04-14T07:31:00.000-07:00

Whew. After the relaxing Rhine River cruise, we headed east on an overnight train to Prague, Czech Republic. The PM train was certainly anything but relaxing! Given the Holiday weekend, we could not reserve any sleeping berths. So, we toughed it out in second class, upright chairs. Yikes. All in all, it was ok - but not desirable. By the time we got to the Czech/German border, we were the only two left in our compartment and were able to put up the armrests and stretch out for a few hours before our arrival in Prague.

At 8am we started our whirlwind tour of old-town Prague. What a neat city! My impressions of Prague are these: (1) people really like their dogs -- they go everywhere with them AND are the most obedient dogs I have ever seen (for example, maybe five or six dogs are left outside a grocery store without being tied up and all sit patiently waiting for their owners -- without running away or even sniffing each other out), (2) the buildings all seem to have red roofs and etched stones for walls, which creates a striking effect, and (3) there is a definite separation between the oldtown (beautiful) and the suburbs (very stereotypically post-communist).

We started with a walk from the train station (one of the ugliest buildings I have been in -- imagine a seemingly short roof, DIRTY floors - gum, urine, spilled liquids, masses of people moving everywhere, smoky air, and many homeless and unstable folks milling about) to the National Museum (very nice) and then the Wenceslas statue. The walk from the train station to the town square was about 30 minutes. The entire promenade is full of shops, American and otherwise. While the shops flank the street, in the center, Czechs have set up little booths, generally selling some sort of meat. The promenade is quite wide - maybe the width of five streets? - and is mostly for foot traffic.

We proceeded to walk through the markets as they were being set up for the day's visitors and ended at Mosel, a famous crystal store. Apparently, the Czech Republic is well known for its fantastic crystal, garnets, and Moravian ceramics. We looked at but did not buy anything at Mosel. We stopped at the astronomical clock (one of the oldest in the world) and roamed through the town square. In the middle of the square, there were a number of trees decorated with Easter eggs, ribbons, and bows. It was quite festive! Following the crowds, we passed through the Jewish quarter where the oldest synagogue is. The synagogue was remarkable not only for its age (and small doors!) but also for the cemetery. People were buried up to 10 - 12 people deep there. All of the gravestones are haphazardly (seemingly) placed in the cemetery, on top of, in back of, next to -- any place were there was some semblance of room. Then, we crossed one of many bridges to walk to the Prague castle, the two main cathedrals, and the Charles Bridge.

On our way to the Castle, we happened upon a secluded garden between some of the old buildings. We roamed through the gardens and found a peacock couple. That is right -- just chilling in the garden for any old person to see -- two peacocks. On our way out of the garden, there was an old gazebo-sort of building which required much examination. What an interesting contrast to the US -- I cannot imagine a tourist town in the US having random peacocks and boarded up, mysterious gazeboes in quite the same fashion. Ahh, the wonderful experiences of travel!

As we had walked quite some distance by the time we got to the Cathedral (at the top of the hill), we thought it wise to climb the 300 stairs to the top of one of the spires. Real smart -- and again, we had our packs to carry as well. The Cathedral was packed by this time with tons of Spanish, Italian, and German tourists (and a few Americans sprinkled in here and there). The stairwell was barely wide enough for two people to fit and, of course, spiraled upwards. Given the degree of famishedness (is that a word?) that I felt at the time, I was the most claustrophobic I have ever been. Hundreds of people going up and down a narrow, steep, long staircase with no way to turn around, slow down, or catch someone if they fell -- we were like very stupid dominoes. But, the view at the top was more than worth it...

We literally walked for 12 hours, carrying our packs during the rainiest, windiest, coldest day since arriving in Europe. When the day had finally come to a close, we took the Metro (notably fast, efficient, and easy) to the suburb of Kacerov (pronounced "catcher-ah-v"). We were given limited instructions to our hotel, so wandered through the streets for 45 minutes. We stopped folks along the way -- most spoke very good English. While they all lived in the neighborhood, none had heard of the Kacerov Hotel or of Na'Uleihli Street -- this struck us as odd. It seems that in the states, you kind of know which streets are where and what establishments are located within five blocks of your home. We proceeded, however, hoping that we were in the right place!

We finally happened upon "Hotel Kacerov." After walking back and forth along Na'Uleihli street for ten minutes and keeping our eyes posted, Dustin found our new home. Located in a "cultural center," our place of residence for the next two evenings took half of a small strip mall. The Hotel comprised the first and second floors of one half; on the other half, the first floor was a grocery store and the second floor was "Club Kacer." Yep -- a dance club... Next door... Directly adjacent to our Hotel!

We checked in -- heck, we had already paid ($40/night - a relative steal in Prague on the holiday weekend). The room and hotel were so stereotypical, it was funny. We were exhausted, wet (but thankfully, not hungry), and really grateful for a warm bed. Having not slept well the night prior (the train ride), walked all day (we calculated approximately 30 miles), and being basically exhausted in all ways possible, we crashed at 7pm. Throughout the night, we were greeted with the bump-bump-de-bump of club music. Traveling didn't seem so great at 1am...

Tour of the Rhine Valley

2006-04-13T06:49:00.000-07:00

Easter Weekend is a BIG deal in Germany and the Czech Republic. People get days off of work for it -- even at the public schools. Since this past weekend was Easter Weekend, and Dustin got two days off work (Friday and Monday), we decided to make a big trip of it!

On Thursday (April 13), we left Aachen in the afternoon. We traveled via train south, to Bacharach. The best of the Rhine (its castles and scenery) is from the hamlet of Bacharach up to Koblenz, according to Rick Steves, our traveling God :). Between Aachen and Cologne, we took the fast Thalys train. After Cologne, we took a quaint little train that stopped in every little town along the way to Bacharach. It was very enjoyable to just ride and watch the people.

The countryside is very not majestic, like in Wyoming or Montana, but more subtle in its grandeur. The train followed a track which started in the towns, moved through farms, and ended with a slow tour of the Rhine. The Rhine cuts through the land like a mini-Grand Canyon. One can only imagine how the water slowly has worn away the sides of the valley... The hills -- they are certainly not mountains -- leading up to the Rhine have smaller evergreen trees in the distance. As one gets closer to the water, the foliage changes to flat vineyards and then slopes steeply down to the river. Apparently, the limestone that walls the Rhine valley warms during the day and stays warm through the night. It is in this continual warmth and shallow soil that the particular Rhine grapes are grown -- and what makes Rhine wine so good.

We started our Rhine Cruise at Bacharach -- officially on the list of one of my favorite small villages in Europe. Bacharach is exactly what I want in a small hamlet -- only cobblestone streets throughout with a small, dramatic cathedral, at one side and a small, storybook castle overlooking the valley below. And, book-ending the village, of course, are beautiful, small vineyards. While in Bacharach and waiting for our ship, we had some Riesling Gelato (Italian-style ice cream) -- yum!

Walking down to the dock, it was clear that the Rhine is quite high now. Apparently, the region is experiencing quite a bit of rain (and unseasonable chilly days - bad for me, as I brought sandals!). We got on the cruise boat, which had maybe 20 people on it. There was fun music playing in the background, and we got a seat directly by a window in the resturant.

We had a wonderful meal with Rhine wine, of course. The tour lasted three hours and was a definite highlight of our time this weekend. Here are some more pictures of the Rhine...

Arrival in Aachen

2006-04-07T06:26:00.000-07:00

During the two weeks leading up to Julianna's arrival in Aachen, Dustin spent most of his time working and not sleeping much (he had to prepare for all of the traveling Julianna had planned!). Dustin worked on setting up our skype accounts and Vonage phone (that's right -- you can call us on our Seattle phone number!) so that we could remain connected to folks at home more easily. So, feel free to call us - we are nine hours ahead of Seattle time, but do call whenever.

Dustin met Julianna at the train station a week and a half ago. The first night, we went out for pizza and a (HUGE) beer in the student district of town -- a mere 10 minute walk from our home. The pizza was great, as was the beer. Many of the young people speak English - but not all. Ordering our meal involved a lot of pointing and smiling...

On Saturday, we walked through the town -- first stopping at the local Starbucks for a latte :). It felt a bit goofy, but it order something "known." The Starbucks is located on the main town square -- other restaurants (including McDonald's and Subway!) -- border the square, as they do in most towns here. It is quite nice to have such a central meeting point. Everyone here walks -- which is great! Owning and driving a car is discouraged, and public transportation, walking, and bike riding are the way to get around.

Saturday night, we met at 8:00pm (late by American standards) for dinner with two friends of Dustin's from the lab. Sasa (pronounced "Sasha") is Croatian, and Bjorn (pronounced "B-yawn") is from Germany). They are both quite nice and fun to be around. We ended up eating, drinking, and dancing with them until 6:00 the following morning. What an introduction!!

Sunday was full -- we did paperwork and settling things all morning and afternoon, went for a run at a nearby greenbelt (similar in feel to Greenlake in Seattle), and then to dinner at Sasa's. We had a very interesting conversation about Croatian history, Bosnia and Serbia, and the current state of affairs. Hearing history from a native really makes it much more real (and sad). Sasa is quite the movie aficionado and was surprised by the amount of American movies that we had not seen (we never claimed to be cool!). We watched Twelve Monkeys at his place and then retired to our home.

Nothing much else happened the rest of the week... The lab goes to lunch at the nearby "Mensa" (no - not the society for smart people -- the student cafeteria) which is subsidized by the state. So, Julianna accompanies the lab guys (there are only four women who are employed at the lab - and only two have come to lunch...) for a cheap meal (2 euros = $2.40) daily. Other than that, we went out another night with some other friends from the lab -- all German this time! Of course, the evening involved a great deal of beer-drinking!!

Here is Julianna on the way to meet Dustin...

Dustin's German haircut...

More pictures of Aachen to come in a later post...

Pre-Trip CRAZINESS

2006-03-25T09:02:00.000-08:00

Dustin left for Aachen, Germany (located at the border of Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands) on March 18. He made a week-long stop (Mar 18 - Mar 25) in Boston to attend a conference and network with folks in EE-world. All in all, his trip to Boston was productive and full. He stayed with a mutual friend, Steve Purpura, for some nights; Steve and his wife, Patti, showed Dustin a good time.

Before Dustin left, however, we had quite a gathering of close friends and family at a local bar in Ballard - the BalMar. Thanks to all who came out to see us off! It was great to see you -- you will each be missed (including those of you who could not make it!). It may not have been the best planning, however, to stay out drinking with friends until 1:00am Friday night with Dustin needing to head to the airport (and finish packing) by 5:30am on Saturday. Some way, however, things worked out, and Dustin made it safely on the plane.

Julianna stayed behind for three weeks to wrap stuff up in Seattle, present a paper in San Diego, and defend her Masters thesis. Julianna's mom, Phyllis, came over to Seattle the week prior to her departure to help with cleaning the condo, preparing for the Masters defense, and packing for the six month trip. What a whirlwind!

With her Masters defense completed, the condo cleaned and ready for our subletter (close friend Nick Roumanda), Julianna took off for Aachen on April 6. Julianna's dad, Tom, flew over from Colville on April 5 to see her off. The threesome brunched at local favorite Vera's and said some sad goodbyes. Julianna's trip was relatively uneventful -- save the two-hour delay in Minneapolis (sitting in the airplane on the landing strip without being able to move because the airport was shut down for lighting), carrying 145 lbs of luggage while making two train connections (one which required 50 stairs in 5 minutes!!), and going to the wrong train station in Aachen.

Websites of interest which detail Aachen's history are listed below... (Charlemagne - aka Charles the Great - is buried here. His remains are stored in golden castes of the cathedral and are on display -- some people make pilgrimages here. Anyone interested? Said to be the Father of Europe, there is more information available about him here and here.)